NFB's 'Piluk' Premieres at Locarno in Hand-Drawn Debut — SkimNews
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- "Piluk" had its world premiere in the Locarno Film Festival's Pardi di Domani selection, produced by the National Film Board of Canada through Marc Bertrand and Jelena Popović.
- Marc Séguin and Elisapie Isaac co-directed the film using over 8,000 drawings in pen, charcoal, and pencil, with a throat-singing soundtrack — deliberately excluding AI and machines from the process.
- The story follows a girl born with wings who crosses the countryside caring for animals; there is no dialogue, with communication conveyed through sketchy linework and expressive choral vocals.
- Elisapie Isaac, an Inuk musician, drew on oral storytelling traditions, embracing vocal ambiguity over structured lyrics or "perfect melody" to leave space for audience projection.
- The National Film Board paired the directors — both new to animation — with animation director Parissa Mohit and technical director Eric Pouliot to help navigate the new medium.
- Producer Jelena Popović framed NFB as a public, non-profit "creative laboratory" and cited its commitment to Indigenous storytellers, naming Terril Calder, Jeff Barnaby, and Walter Scott as part of that ongoing body of work.
- Séguin and Isaac previously collaborated on Séguin's 2016 feature "Stealing Alice," and Isaac's prior music career on stage informed the film's minimalist vocal approach.
Why it matters: NFB's public funding model enabled a deliberately un-commercial, no-AI animated short from Indigenous and multidisciplinary creators — a production path the private sector rarely supports. For Locarno audiences and the animation community, the premiere highlights how public broadcasters can act as creative laboratories, protecting narrative sovereignty while backing high-risk aesthetics like 8,000 hand-drawn frames and wordless throat-singing.
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