While in Russia Chartrand discovered Petrov's interest in making a film about Papa Hemingway's The Old Man and The Sea. Although Blais was very impressed with Petrov's style and technique, it was Chartrand who pursued Petrov's talent and finally succeeded in securing an apprenticeship with him in Russia. It was like seeing a Rembrandt come to life." Blais and his sister-in-law Martine Chartrand, a producer at the National Film Board of Canada, were in attendance. "It was unbelievable the amount of work there. "I fell off my seat when I saw ," says Pascal Blais. With that to contend with, why would a Russian filmmaker comfortable working in 35 mm, and a Canadian production company with no previous experience in large format filmmaking, be interested in taking such a risk to produce The Old Man and The Sea? The Beginning of a Saga The story begins at the 1990 Ottawa International Animation Festival where Petrov's Oscar nominated film, The Cow was being shown in competition. The incredible detail of the image is both mouth watering eye-candy for any cinephile and a nightmare challenge for any filmmaker. The most minute error is amplified in immense proportions when projected on screen. Large format filmmaking is an absolutely unforgiving medium. While "El Campeon" fought the fish on his own, Petrov had the help of Russian colleagues and the technical team at Montreal's Pascal Blais Productions in producing the 22 minute animated interpretation of The Old Man and The Sea. Of course unlike the old man, Petrov was not fighting for his humility and existence. The story becomes downright maniacal when you consider that an animation stand was constructed from scratch for the film. Petrov's daunting task of filling 70mm of celluloid and projecting those chemically composed sight and sounds onto a seven story screen was as much a challenge as the fictional old man's four day battle with the marlin. ![]() In 1997, 40 year old Alexander Petrov of Prechistoe, Russia struggled against a strange environment (Canada), a new and intimidating technology (IMAX), and with the use of his finger tips, transformed Hemingway's ode to masculinity from splashes of oil paint into a vibrant, coherent, fresco in motion. In 1952, 53 year old Ernest Miller Hemingway of Oak Park, Illinois shrugged off the decay of his own weary, abused body, an increasingly scarred mind, and the pulsating aches of his five tools of anguished expression to compose his tale of an old Cuban who battles his own decay, a crippled left hand, and a giant marlin. ![]() © Pascal Blais Productions inc., Imagica Corp., Panorama Film Studio of Yaroslavl.
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