A White Dream
- Mathieu Le Lay
A White Dream
VIMFF FILM AWARD: Grand Prize
BC Premiere
53 mins |
France |
2021
DIRECTOR:
Mathieu Le Lay
LANGUAGE(S): French
| SUBTITLES: English
Synopsis
Wildlife photographer Jérémie Villet travels alone through the white deserts of the northern hemisphere with his pulka and his telephoto lens, looking for animals that survive in extreme cold.
During his upcoming expedition in Northern Canada, Jérémie is about to explore the wild and extreme Yukon region with the ultimate goal of photographing the legendary mountain goat. The difficulty of access to the mountain territories where this animal lives and the freezing temperatures will make the task challenging.
Carried by adventures and unique human and animal encounters, this documentary gives us a closer look at the photographer’s approach and to treat this changing world with delicacy.
Jury Quote
Many of us would like to know how a professional wildlife photographer creates exquisite imagery and achieves a seemingly unachievable vision. One observes through this film that both filmmaker and the subject are obsessed enough to suffer for their craft, even through the pain of frostbite. The result is sublime.
– Michael Brown, VIMFF 2023 Jury
Trailer
Director
Mathieu Le Lay
Mathieu Le Lay is a film director and cinematographer based in the French Alps. His work is authentic, geographically diverse, visceral, yet consistently visually stunning and poetic. After he graduated in Wildlife Conservation at the University of Salford (UK), his insatiable love for nature, cinema and wildlife led him to one year study at IFFCAM, the French wildlife film school. Since 2008, his films tell genuine stories of the interaction between humans and nature, inspiring people to connect with our natural world. Inspiration is the key in Mathieu's creativity. Beyond the use of natural lights to create evocative atmospheres, he has developed creative and technical skills to shoot documentary films, in some of the most remote and harshest environments of our planet. His biggest privilege as an author is being able to work on subjects that fascinate him, and drive him to bring emotional and visual depth to his films. His work has been recognised multiple times in international film festivals focused on nature, mountain, wildlife and adventure thematics.
