Making Movie History: Michèle Cournoyer

Michèle Cournoyer came to the NFB with a background in the fine arts. During the 1970s, she made her own independent shorts, including a striking experimental collage films. Arriving at the NFB in the early 1990s, she would make inventive use of the rotoscope, a technique that allows animators to draw over live-action footage. She turned to a new medium with The Hat (1999), a work executed in ink. Rendered in minimalist black and white, the film addressed the difficult visual metaphors. The Hat won worldwide acclaim-and Cournoyer went on to tackle similarly challenging subjects with Accordion (2004) and the chilling Robes of War (2008). Mastering the art of film without words, she has left us speechless.