Bestiaire: Festival Select

Join the Society and Recreation department of the North York Central Library in Rm. 101 for monthly screenings of fiction and non-fiction films that push the boundaries of the medium. This month’s title is Bestiaire (2012), directed by Denis Côté.

Description (TIFF Shop): Fascinating and beguiling, Bestiaire is filmmaker Denis Côté's (Curling) mesmerizing meditation on the relationships between animals and people through the seasons at a Quebec safari park. This strikingly gorgeous work about the act of looking slyly blurs the line between observer and observed (the film opens with art students sketching taxidermied creatures). And despite lack of a traditional narrative, there is dramatic tension in each exquisitely framed shot: a cage door under attack from a growling lion; the scurrying striped legs of zebras in a pen; the long stare of a bull, straight into camera. Contemplative and enthralling, Bestiaire is cinema at its purest.

Host or Publisher At Toronto Public Library by Parks Canada/Rouge National Urban Park