The Human Plant

The Human Plant (French: La Plante humaine) is a Canadian animated feature film, directed by Pierre Hébert and released in 1996.[1] The film stars Michael Lonsdale as Mr. Michel, a lonely and isolated widower who spends all his time at home watching television, but is driven to nightmare visions by the constant bombardment of negative and frightening information.[2]

The film was a coproduction of the National Film Board of Canada and commercial film studio Arcadia Films.[3] It grew out of an experimental stage animation project that Hébert undertook with composer Robert Marcel Lepage in the 1990s, in which Hébert would draw improvisational animations while Lepage performed a live score.[4]

Its voice cast also included Sotigui Kouyaté, Domini Blythe, Joseph Rouleau, Michelle Allen, Laurent Chabot, Marisa Corriols and Denis Karegeya.

The film premiered at the 1996 Toronto International Film Festival.[5] It was subsequently screened at the Ottawa International Animation Festival[6] and at the Festival du nouveau cinéma.

Lepage received a Genie Award nomination for Best Original Score at the 18th Genie Awards in 1997.[7] The film won the Prix AQCC-SODEC from the Association québécoise des critiques de cinéma at the Rendez-vous du cinéma québécois in 1997.[8]