"Marie-Josee’s short animated film, PASSAGES begins like an etch-a-sketch primer on the beauty and awe of bringing a new life into the world. Unfortunately, just as everyone who has gone through the experience will tell you—over and over and over again—that’s just the beginning. And for Marie-Josee, thanks to what may be the most thorough collection of incompetent people gathered under one roof to care for the ill and infirm—it nearly became the end for her child. But the film is not simply an indictment on one particular hospital or one woman’s harrowing nightmare of a birthing experience gone horribly wrong. It manages to aim for and hit a trickier target—the wonder and fear, then fortitude and fighting spirit of a new mother and her newborn child."

"Many a young film student has been inspired by the work of NFB animation pioneer Norman McLaren, but few have parlayed this inspiration into an award-winning film of their own. That takes the kind of gumption displayed by 29-year-old producer/director Marie-Josée Saint-Pierre, whose short McLaren’s Negatives came out of left field to win last year’s Jutra award for best animated film."

"Animated documentaries are a new wave of an older art form combining elements of a life, a lifetime career, a unique art, and a quick sharp look at what holds it all together in a new age technological mix. Terri Dentry talked at length with Marie-Josee Saint-Pierre about her latest animated film, which showcases the life of a master of animation: Norman McLaren."