VANCOUVER PREMIERE // VANCITY THEATRE EXCLUSIVE
Shot in the Pacific Northwest, Guy Maddin's latest faux-autobiographical, fantastically convoluted silent spectacular is equal parts childhood reminiscence, expressionist horror film, teen detective serial, and Grand Guignol reverie. And much, much more.
As in the masterpiece Cowards Bend the Knee, our lead is a young Guy, who lazes away his under-stimulated youth with his teenage sister on a mysterious island, also home to a horde of orphans living together in the lighthouse. Their every move is vigilantly watched over by Guy's tyrannical mother from the top of the lighthouse while his father, a scientist and inventor, secretly tinkers away in the basement. When the new parents of recently adopted children discover mysterious head wounds on their young, teen detectives Wendy and Chance Hale (the "Lightbulb Kids") take the case. As the investigation progresses, it leads the kids into the darkest regions of revelation and repression and spins dangerously out of control as the terrible secrets of Guy's family are laid bare...
Named as one of the top ten films of 2006 by The New York Times, Brand! has been performed with a live orchestra, foley artists, and a castrato, but will be screened here with a newly recorded score and a florid narration delivered by none other than Isabella Rossellini. And if that wasn't enough, exclusive new Maddin shorts will also screen in the Film Centre Atrium!!
"The most joyous film at Berlin was Guy Maddin's Brand upon the Brain! The film is passionately serious and poetic. Maker and master of his own cosmos, Maddin says he shot this film in nine days. That is three days longer than God took to create the world, but the extra 72 hours were worth it." - Nigel Andrews, Financial Times
"Uproariously funny and surprisingly touching. A magical experience."- Michael Dwyer, Irish Times
Inspired by the aesthetics and melodramatic flourishes of silent cinema, Central European literature and the desolation of his native Winnipeg, Guy Maddin has fashioned a career like no other. A Super-8-cranking modern-day Eisenstein, filming plots that would make John Waters blush, Maddin embraces a cinema where expressionism, somnambulism and lurid sexual neuroses unite-and conquer!
Selected filmography
2006 Winnipeg (feature documentary) in post-production
2006 Brand upon the Brain! (feature)
2005 My Dad is 100 Years Old (17 mins)
2003 The Saddest Music in the World (feature)
2003 Cowards Bend the Knee (feature)
2002 Dracula -- Pages From A Virgin's Diary (feature)
1997 Twilight of the Ice Nymphs (feature)
1992 Careful (feature)
1990 Archangel (feature)
1988 Tales From The Gimli Hospital (feature)
For more information about the film and to download PDF press kit and high rez images, video trailer go to: http://www.filmswelike.com/pages/butb.html
The official site for BRAND UPON THE BRAIN is http://branduponthebrain.com/
Guy Maddin is available for phone interviews, please contact Laine Slater at 604 685 0260 or laine@viff.org
PRESS SCREENING: May 29, 10am at the Vancity Theatre, 1181 Seymour St.
R.S.V.P. to laine@viff.org
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