Year: 1953
Language: French
Format: 16mm Colour
Runtime: 16 min
Director: Jean Palardy
Producer: Jean Palardy
Writer: Jean Palardy, Léonard Forest
Cinematographer: Grant Crabtree
Editor: Wanda Nowakowski
Music: William McCauley
Narration: Ovila Légaré
Production Company: National Film Board of Canada

This folkloric children’s film recounts the fantastic exploits of Ti-Jean, a super-strong ten-year-old boy, in a lumber camp one winter. Ti-Jean’s feats dwarf those of even the strongest lumberjacks as he fells timber, carries and piles heavy logs and emerges victorious in every competition. Through its portrait of Ti-Jean’s fantastic accomplishments, the film depicts the typical routine of a winter logging camp and has all the charm and naïveté of a folk story. It was so popular that two further films (directed by Raymond Garceau) were made: Ti-Jean s’en va dans l’ouest/Ti-Jean Goes West (1957) and Ti-Jean au pays du fer/Ti-Jean in the Land of Iron (1958).

By: Peter Morris