Karl Lemieux Platforms
© Karl Lemieux, image tirée du projet Plateformes, 2026
Presented as part of the Montreal International Documentary Festival (RIDM)
Plateforms is an experimental film shot on 16mm with the support of the National Film Board of Canada. Filmed along the Scottish coast, it documents the decommissioning of offshore oil platforms at the end of their operational life, transforming an industrial process into a sensory experience where image, sound, and materiality converge.
The project engages with questions surrounding the Anthropocene, industrially shaped landscapes, and infrastructures that embody both technological power and the consequences of fossil fuel extraction. Through an open-ended documentary approach, the film reflects on the monumentality of these steel structures, the necessity of their disappearance, and the human labour involved in dismantling them.
The use of 16mm film is central to Lemieux’s practice. Altered through photochemical processes, the film stock echoes the transformation of the materials it depicts while foregrounding the materiality of cinema itself as a language. The soundscape, developed in collaboration with composer BJ Nilsen, extends this exploration by bringing together mechanical vibrations, industrial environments, and rich acoustic textures.
Presented as an installation, Plateforms invites a sensory encounter. By confronting viewers with these monuments of the oil industry, the work opens a space for reflection on our relationship to territory, time, and the irreversible transformations of the contemporary world.
© Karl Lemieux, image tirée du projet Plateformes, 2026
Karl Lemieux is a filmmaker whose practice is rooted in the dialogue between cinema, music, and sound art. At the core of his work—which also encompasses fiction filmmaking—the cinematic apparatus and his engagement with analog film occupy a central place. His films, installations, and performances have been presented internationally in numerous museums, galleries, theatres, concert venues, and film festivals, including the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Austrian Film Museum in Vienna, and the Eye Filmmuseum in Amsterdam. Since 2010, he has created 16mm film projections for the Montreal-based band Godspeed You! Black Emperor. He is also the co-founder, with Daïchi Saïto, of the Double Negative collective, dedicated to the production and dissemination of experimental cinema. His first fiction feature film, Maudite Poutine (2016), was presented in the Orizzonti section of the official competition of the 73rd Venice Film Festival, organized by La Biennale di Venezia.
