Mapping Canadian Cinematographic Territories

In this project, we propose to explore the relationships between fictional spaces, real spaces and the Geoweb, by addressing the following question: how the conceptual and technological tools that are emerging from the geoweb can serve to improve our understanding of the spatial structures of fictional places and of their relationship with the referential places? The first step proposed to reach this goal is to develop an ontology of cinematographic territories. This ontology appears to be critical for modeling in a systematic way those cinematographic territories which are complex, multiple, connoted, and subjective. This ontology can be envisioned as a necessary interface between cinematographic territories and the technological framework required to map them, as well as between the fictional and the referential world. The second step is to develop relevant spatial representations of these complex spatial units. This project is currently under development through the mapping of 15 contemporary Canadian films that take place mainly in Montreal. using a mapping application that we developed for this purpose.

In an earlier stage of the project, 46 contemporary Canadian films were mapped in a systematic way. This mapping endeavor had two main objectives. on the one hand, to develop a cybercartographic application, This application enables the simultaneous representation of the places of the narration (geography), the connection between these places (geometry), as well as the temporal dimension inherent to storytelling (See Caquard, Naud, 2013). On the other, To analyze the geographic structure of Canadian cinematographic places. (See Caquard, Naud, Gonzales 2012)

For more information, please see atlascine.org


  • Funding

  • FRQSC: Fonds de Recherche du Québec – Société et Culture (-2014)
  • Principal Investigator

  • Sébastien Caquard
  • Geomedia Team

  • Daniel Naud
  • Taien Ng-Chan
  • Mengkian Yang
  • Collaborators

  • Thierry Joliveau
  • William Cartwright

The film "Jésus de Montréal" mapped using AtlasCine 2