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In Memory
Frank Cole
# 2
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Saturday October 12th, 2013 / 8 pm
Résidence Lucien Paye
Cité Universitaire de Paris
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Frank Cole (1954 – 2000) was an award-winning Canadian documentary filmmaker and avid surfer who became the first North American to cross the Sahara alone on camel from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea, in 1990. His documentary Life Without Death chronicled his experience and won him several prestigious awards as well as being released theatrically in Paris.
Born in Saskatchewan to a New Brunswick father from the diplomatic field, Cole grew up in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Czechoslovakia, Switzerland and South Africa. A well-educated traveller, he studied languages at Carleton University and later 16mm film production at Algonquin College with the legendary documentarian Peter Wintonick. His films include A Documentary, The Mountenays, A Life and Life Without Death.
Obsessed by the death of his grandfather and fear of mortality itself, Cole earned a place in the Guinness Book of Records (French edition) for his 1990 solo crossing of the Sahara Desert from Mauritania to the Red Sea alone on camel. In 2000, Cole returned to cross the Sahara again; this time his plan was to cross and then return from the Red Sea back to the Atlantic Ocean. In October 2000, he left Timbuktu for Gao on the sand track known as Autoroute National. He arrived in Ber and departed eastwards after speaking with the Malian Gendarmerie under a date tree. Hours later, Cole met one or two bandits who murdered him. Cole fought back but could not overpower the attackers. Cole died at sunset and was tied to a small desert shrub tree for reasons unknown. His killing included the theft of most of his exposed film recordings and camera gear. The last images of his last trip were filmed in Mauritania and shipped back to his family in Ottawa where they now rest. His camels, bought and tattooed in Mauritania, have never been found.
His remains were cryogenically preserved at the Michigan Cryonics Institute in suburban Detroit's Clinton Township. Theories surrounding his life and unsolved death still circulate to this day.
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Mountenays |
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Frank Cole
Canada
1981 | 0:22:00
In "The Mounenays", Frank Cole signs a portray of a large family living together in the Ottawa valley, near to Perth in Ontario. Filmed in the snow, in black and white, the surrounding of this group of marginal people seems frustrating and humble. In the center of a kind car trash depot stand a miserable house, where three generations and a lot of animals live together. |
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Footage |
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Frank Cole
Canada
2000 | 0:23:00
In April 200 Frank Cole embarked on a second trans-Saharan camal crossing. This foodage was filmed during the first few month of his journay as he travelled through Mauritania and Mali. he film was sent to Canada from Timbuktu, Mali in Octobere of 2000. He was killed by bandits several days later 60 km East from Timbuktu outside the village of Ber. Only minor edits to the foodage have been made. |
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A Life |
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Frank Cole
Canada
2000 | 1:15:30
In 1984, Cole return in he Sahare for filming his first feature foilm. "A life" . Changing between images of an empty room and from the Sahara, the film offers the fictiv history of a ma (played by Cole), who is trying tu fulfil himself by his confrantation with a serie of dangerous situations in the desert. Later Cole is filming his grandfather in the his last moment of life.. Cole has been profoundly touched by his death, which has a decive role for taking his decision to cross the Sahara. |
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October 10th - 20th 2013
In this this section we want to revoke outstandigung personnalités in cinematographique and audio--visual creation.
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