Guillaume Blanchet

Inspired by his father, who clocked an estimated 120,000 kilometers on a bicycle by the age of 64, French-born Guillaume Blanchet rode through the streets of Montreal for 382 days, shaving, cooking, napping, flirting with women and auspiciously living on two wheels as the cityscape and seasons passed. A former copyeditor for the Montreal-based advertising firm BleuBlancRouge, he gained attention in 2009 for his stop-motion animated film Laïka. Blanchet doesn't use much technology to create his work: He doesn’t draw, doesn’t employ animation software and doesn't even know how to use Photoshop. He has an artist’s keen imagination and a load of patience — as is seen in Man Who Lived on His Bike (Mountainfilm 2012).