Alma, Québec, Canada, 2021
An ancient water tower perched 80 feet in the air, overlooking the town of Alma below, houses an immersive film that follows the extraordinary journey of a refugee family who have left their native home to make their way to Lac Saint-Jean. The Sea Inside is a family epic and veritable living mural, a dramatically immersive experience that merges the visual arts with poetic storytelling.The film is preceded by an interactive experience,The Travel Journal, which underscores the richly symbolic relationship between water and deep memory.
The Sea Inside is a story of the universal quest for home and belonging. With a narrative carried by a small house set symbolically adrift in a turbulent sea by a tsunami, the film explores the migrant dream of a family seeking refuge in a sea with no more danger… an inland sea. The beautiful lands and warm, welcoming people of the Lac Saint-Jean region are presented through the eyes of the travellers, who dream ahead of their new homeland.
Create a fictional work that captures a universal and artistically engaging point of view, fulfilling a tourism mandate that aims to showcase the exceptional people and beauty of the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region. Design an inviting and moving immersive experience in a metallic industrial structure that vibrates with every gust of wind and stands 80 feet in the air. Produce a narrative work of fiction that blends poetry and the visual arts, most notably by contrasting traditional methods of artistic expression with contemporary 360-degree video capture drone technology.
This immersive spectacle was produced using a mix of hand drawing, watercolour, image animation and 360-degree video techniques. It was brought to life through collaborations with visual artist Carine Khalife, production company Canopée Médias, composer Robert Pelletier and musical director and sound designer Javier Asencio. The film was carried by the words of Pekuakamishkueu poet Marie-Andrée Gill, who wrote the narration.