The Snowshoers (1958)

A classic of cinéma vérité, Les Raquetteurs documents a 1958 snowshoers’ conference in Sherbrooke. Everything is so faithfully captured by the camera the snowshoe races, the spectators’ and competitors’ behaviour, the parade of snowshoers with young girls dressed in their finest, the dancers and musicians trying to outdo each other in skill and inventiveness that the film could almost be called an ethnographic document. Impressed by Les Raquetteurs, Jean Rouch invited Michel Brault to work on the shoot of Chronique d’un été in 1960.