Bio

Guy Maddin, a 2015-16 visiting lecturer at Harvard, has created, over the last 30 years, countless shorts and 11 feature films, including the just-completed The Forbidden Room, which premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, and opened the 2015 Berlin Film Festival Forum. Earlier in his career he helmed Emmy Award-winning ballet film Dracula -- Pages from a Virgin’s Diary (2002); The Saddest Music in the World (2003); Tales from the Gimli Hospital (1988), and US National Society of Film Critics Best Experimental Film Prize-winners Archangel (1991) and Heart of the World (2001). He is also an internationally acclaimed installation artist and the author of three published books. He is a member of both the Order of Canada and Order of Manitoba, and was awarded the Telluride Silver Medallion for life achievement in film in 1995. 

Works

Bring Me the Head of Tim Horton

  • 2015
  • Guy Maddin

Guided by the spirit of Evan Johnson's Cuadecec Manifesto (which calls for makings-of en masse), "Bring Me the Head of Tim Horton" is a strange, stirring and anarchic behind-the-scenes look at Paul Gross's new feature, "Hyena Road".

Bring Me the Head of Tim Horton

Berlin

  • 2008
  • Guy Maddin

Maddin's film incorporates found footage to provide a glimpse of wartime Berlin. Crowds of soldiers march in formation, play instruments and engage in training drills. Burning fires and a frantic pace contrast with the organized movements of the troops, perhaps foreshadowing the destructive events to come.

Berlin

Collage Party

  • 2008
  • Guy Maddin

A super 8mm document of the first Keyhole Collage party hosted by Guy Maddin and Paul Butler. Shot and edited in camera by Guy Maddin.

Collage Party

Footsteps

  • 2008
  • Guy Maddin

"Footsteps," a crew of Foley artists, at work!

Footsteps

Glorious

  • 2008
  • Guy Maddin

A weakening ganglord regains the grip over his children when he is visited by the ghost of his father. The ghost then collects his "generational fees."

Glorious

It's My Mother's Birthday Today

  • 2008
  • Guy Maddin

This short biographical sketch of Dov Houle, the castrato know as the "Manitoba Meadowlark" who performed on tour with Brand Upon the Brain, follows a man and his eggs, a birdcage, chirping birds, and dust-covered, chirping children, all shot in Houle's home during the 2008 NFL Super Bowl.

It's My Mother's Birthday Today

Odilon Redon: The Eye Like a Strange Balloon Mounts Towards Infinity

  • 2008
  • Guy Maddin

Keller, an old sub-aquatic locomotive engineer, and his son Caelum witness a train collision and rescue from its wreckage Berenice, an orphaned pre-adolescent girl-snail. Keller and Caelum adopt Berenice as a member of their family. Keller even names his beloved steam engine after his "daughter".

Odilon Redon: The Eye Like a Strange Balloon Mounts Towards Infinity (2008)

Send Me to the 'Lectric Chair

  • 2008
  • Guy Maddin

A diva is tied to a wooden 'lectric chair.

Send me to the 'Lectric Chair

Spanky: to the Pier and Back

  • 2008
  • Guy Maddin

Spanky, his last walk at the lake.

Spanky: to the Pier and Back

Odin's Shield Maiden

  • 2007
  • Guy Maddin

O, celibate ocean, Wet with death, Do not grieve

Odin's Shield Maiden

Audition 1 (Workbooks)

  • 2005
  • Guy Maddin

Ignorant armies of sketchy people clashing by night.

Audition 1 (Workbooks)

Audition 2 (Workbooks)

  • 2005
  • Guy Maddin

Ignorant armies of sketchy people clashing by night.

Audition 2 (Workbooks)

FuseBoy (Workbooks)

  • 2005
  • Guy Maddin, Jody Shapiro

Ignorant armies of sketchy people clashing by night.

FuseBoy (Workbooks)

My Dad is 100 Years Old

  • 2005
  • Guy Maddin

In a stunning collaboration with avant-garde filmmaker Guy Maddin, Isabella Rossellini celebrates the life and work of her father, director Roberto Rossellini, on the 100th anniversary of his birth.

My Dad is 100 Years Old

A Trip To The Orphanage

  • 2004
  • Guy Maddin

A visually lovely partial-sound homage to the silent film era, or a four-minute music video from a hundred-year-old film vault.

A Trip To The Orphanage

Sissy Boy Slap Party

  • 2004
  • Guy Maddin

Starring Louis Negin and his Chippewa Sissy-Boys, this six-minute study in what can go wrong when the sissys are left alone is an exercise in grafting the Three Stooges onto a Kenneth Anger lilac bush. Originally commissioned as a four-minute short in support of the Saddest Music in the World, this 6 minute version stands on its own as a timeless look at a very human problem. Now contains 50% more slapping!

Sissy Boy Slap Party

Sombra Dolorosa

  • 2004
  • Guy Maddin

In this Maxi-Mexi-Melancolour short, the widow Paramo attempts to prevent further familial tragedy.

Sombra Dolorosa

It's A Wonderful Life (Sparklehorse Music Video)

  • 2001
  • Guy Maddin

I am the only one...

It's A Wonderful Life (Sparklehorse Music Video)

Hospital Fragment

  • 1999
  • Guy Maddin

The attempts of a young man (Neale) to consummate his love for a young woman (Heck) are thwarted by a fish monger (Fehr). The woman's beloved (Gottli) cuts bark fish.

Hospital Fragment

Chimney (Workbooks)

  • 1997
  • Guy Maddin

Ignorant armies of sketchy people clashing by night.

Chimney (Workbooks)