Trailer for Finding Macpherson.
Serge Giguère’s captivating new film tracks an animator’s deeply personal quest to uncover the mystery behind legendary Quebecois folk singer Félix Leclerc’s song about a black lumberjack. As a young black girl of Haitian origin—born in Montreal and adopted by white parents during the 1960s—award-winning animator Martine Chartrand was thrilled to discover that this log driver was inspired by a real-life Jamaican man named Frank Randolph Macpherson, who had immigrated to Quebec in 1917. As she delves deeper into Macpherson’s life, uncovering his past and meeting his friends and relatives, she realizes that she has shared Macpherson’s experiences of loneliness, racial isolation and stereotyping. Shot over 10 years, Giguère’s intimate observational documentary entwines with Chartrand’s luminous hand-painted animation to illuminate the relationship between these two artists—and between reality and the creative imagination that binds us together.