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APREMATURE PASSING IS ALWAYS reason for sadness, but such a passing is doubly tragic when the victim has left behind a hint of great things to come. Such was the case with talented French filmmaker Claude Massot, who committed suicide in February of 1995, some time after completing his impressive feature debut, Kabloonak.
Kabloonak (the Inuit word for "strangers") is the story of Robert J. Flaherty, the "father of the documentary," and his remarkable efforts to make Nanook of the North, the landmark film about the life of the Inuit Eskimo people in the Canadian Arctic regions of the Hudson Bay. Particularly important to Kabloonak, set during Nanook's filming between 1920 and 1922, is the emphasis placed upon Flaherty's deep friendship with his "protagonist" Nanook and the other Inuit people who led such courageous lives in the hostile lands of snow and ice.
To portray Flaherty, Massot chose actor Charles Dance, whose prior films include Good Morning Babylon (as D.W. Griffith), Alien3, and The Last Action Hero. To play the Eskimo hunter Nanook, Massot found Adamie Inukpuk, an Inuit hunter who still lives in the traditional way - and is actually Nanook's grandson.
Kabloonak, currently being screened on the festival circuit, will possibly be released sometime later this year. It deservedly won the "Prix des Amerique" at the 1994 Montreal Film Festival for Best Technical Achievement and Photography for Massot and directors of photography Francois Protat and Jacques Loiseleux.
Loiseleux, an award-winning cinematographer whose credits include films by Jean-Luc Godard, Yves Boisset and five films by Maurice Pialat, shot footage in Siberia; Protat did the honors in Canada. A Frenchman, Protat graduated from the National School of Cinematography in Paris in 1966. He moved to Canada in 1969 and since then has photographed 40 features and TV movies in Canada, the U.S. and France. His diverse credits include Johnny Mnemonic, Mark Twain, Beautiful Dreamers, Winter People and Joshua Then and Now, for which he received a Genie Award for Best Cinematography.
With a pronounced sense of the film world's loss, AC herewith presents Massot's final thoughts about his promising work on the project, along with comments by Protat.
American Cinematographer. Your own background is in documentary film and ethnic cinematography. How did you start?
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