Hoax_canular, Dominic Gagnon, Canada, 2013, 95’, OV with Spanish subtitles, DCP
One of the retrospectives at Play Doc this year is dedicated to Canadian filmmaker Dominic Gagnon, a contemporary master of cinema 2.0, filmmaking that does not film images, but draws them from the infinite YouTube archive. The festival catalogue says:
"His cinema, halfway between documentary and found footage, gathers its resources from the Internet, specifically from free broadcasting platforms. Gagnon is interested in a new phenomenon: videos made by amateurs in the era of new technologies. In this process, he appropriates this material and then puts it together to create a unique documentary. Without a filming process, his work is based on the viewing and archiving of hundreds of hours, on carefully screening the videos selected and on the final assembly of these fragmented speeches to create a highly disturbing documentary portrait of 21st century western society.
Hoax_Canular is an apocalyptic film: on December 21, 2012 the Internet and the media were flooded with unsubstantiated messages and rumors announcing the end of the world. This film gathers the reaction of hundreds of teenagers who responded and reacted in their YouTube profiles to that threat. Based on more than 70 hours of videos uploaded on the eve of the Great Apocalypse, Hoax_Canular is a profound reflection on how young people react to the anguish generated by the media. We come across a very wide variety of reactions, without ever really knowing where parody ends and sincerity begins. The film offers a vibrant portrait of a generation born in the digital age."
Hoax_Canular is an apocalyptic film: on December 21, 2012 the Internet and the media were flooded with unsubstantiated messages and rumors announcing the end of the world. This film by Dominic Gagnon gathers the reaction of hundreds of teenagers who responded and reacted in their YouTube profiles to that threat.