Synopsis
A documentary about a memory, and fiction about a city, My Winnipeg fluctuates between both formats to produce a free and emotional feature film that pays tribute to the filmmaker’s city, the cold capital of the state of Manitoba, and his family, cinema and memories. The movie was originally commissioned by the Documentary Channel and ended up being the final part of his fictionalised autobiography, defined by the man himself as a docu-fantasy. The result is a journey to the heart of the hyperborean city, which is both the physical and the mental setting, in which we are invited on board a phantasmagorical train that projects the director’s past and constructs the mythology of Winnipeg’s foundation around multiple strategies: dramatizations, archive footage, Super 8 recordings, 16 mm Bolex and moving cameras … Layers of history, memories and uchronic delirium, all of these images emerge in the film as Maddin’s obsessions, accelerated pulses that here serve the ultimate aim of avoiding oblivion.
Filmmaker
Guy Maddin
(Winnipeg, 1956) He studied economics at the University of Winnipeg. Maddin is an installation artist, screenwriter, cinematographer and filmmaker. He has also mounted numerous live performance versions of his films around the world, featuring live music, sound effects, singing and narration. Since 2011 he has collaborated with Galen Johnson and Evan Johnson under the banner of Development Ltd., their Winnipeg-based filmmaking collective.
Filmography: The Green Fog (2017), Accidence (2017), Seances (2016), Bring Me the Head of Tim Horton (2015, D'A 2016), The Forbidden Room (2015, D'A 2015) Keyhole (2011), My Winnipeg (2007, D'A 2011), Brand Upon the Brain! (2006, D'A 2011), The Saddest Music in the World (2003, D'A 2011), Dracula, Pages From a Virgin's Diary (2002, D'A 2011), Twilight of the Ice Nymphs (1997, D'A 2011), Archangel (1990, D'A 2011)
