Director: Pedro Pires

Title in English: Hope
Original title: Hope

2011/Canada/ HD/ 11’/ Fiction/ Colour

CREDITS
Script:  Pedro Pires; Photography:  Pedro Pires; Editing:  Pedro Pires; Music:  Robert M. Lepage; Sound:  Bernard Gariepy Strobl; Leading actors:  Bill Croft, Lucas Silveira, Vincent D'abrouzze; Producer:  Phoebe Greenberg

Synopsis:
The fragmented violence of war seen through the eyes of a General on his deathbed. A mind accustomed to a life on the battlefield surrenders to a stream of consciousness, mixing death, brutality, and finally, one last gesture of hope. The film is based on the award winning play Jimmy, créature de rêve by Marie Brassard.

Filmography:
Pedro Pires was born in Nantes, France, in 1969 from Portuguese parents. He grew up in Quebec City where he soon discovered his ability to reproduce and animate characters and monsters. These experiments allowed him to develop his own techniques of molding and special effects. In 1990, at age 21, he entered Laval University to study Fine Arts. Thereafter he received a « Special Make-Up Effects » Certificate from the renowned New York artist Dick Smith and completed a Computer Graphic Design Certificate at the Centre NAD – National Animation and Design Centre in Montreal. His film debut was in 1995 with The Sound of the Carceri, a documentary by filmmaker François Girard, in which he recreated the fictitious prisons of Piranesi around the cellist Yo-Yo Ma in 3D. This work won him an Emmy® Award for « Outstanding Visual Effects » and a Gemini Award for « Best Visual Effects » in 1998. This enabled him to continue working with François Girard on the artistic directing of the visual effects in the film The Red Violin.
In 2001, he took on the visual conception for the film Possible Worlds, which marked the beginning of a constant artistic collaboration with the playwright, director and filmmaker Robert Lepage. In 2007, he set up his own film production company, Pedro Pires Inc., dedicated to the creation of original content using digital technology. In 2008 his company produced the short film Danse Macabre, a multidisciplinary collaboration with AnneBruce Falconer and Robert Lepage, where he acted simultaneously as scriptwriter, director, photographer and editor. This film has been screened at many festivals since 2009 and has won next to 40 international prizes, notably a Jutra and a Genie Award in 2010, in addition to great recognition from the industry. Pedro Pires designed the images for TOTEM, a new Cirque du Soleil show directed by Robert Lepage. This show made its worldwide debut under the Grand Chapiteau in spring 2010 at the Old Port of Montreal. He is currently working on the feature film Michelle Marie Thomas (working title), a partial adaptation of the play Lipsynch by Robert Lepage, with whom he is sharing the direction.Moreover, this year he will make his first foray in the opera world by designing the images for Siegfried, a segment of Wagner’s Ring produced by the New York Metropolitan Opera.