Trailer for Transatlantic which will be screening at the Hot Docs Film Festival.
In August 2013, brothers Félix, Nicolas and Gabriel Dufour-Laperrière boarded a cargo ship in Antwerp, Belgium destined for Montreal. The 30-day journey allowed them to brilliantly capture the microcosm of the ship and its 21 crew members while conveying the immensity of the expanse they were crossing. Intent on achieving an essence more than a factual account, their combined filmmaking efforts deliver an incredible immersive experience that forces the viewer to shift their sense of time and place into an almost meditative state. Scenes linger and organically evolve—reminiscent of films like Leviathan and Manakamana—as witnessed when the cavernous hull transforms from a site of labour to leisure for an improvised cricket match. The ocean’s pervasive presence in alienating camera angles and creaks of the steel in the atmospheric sound design create a spectacular cinematic voyage between distant shores. An unparalleled poetic travelogue of modern seafarers.