State of Cinema: Guy Maddin

Description

Each year, SFFILM invites a visionary thinker to discuss the intersecting worlds of contemporary cinema and visual arts, culture and society, images and ideas. We are honored this year to welcome Canadian iconoclast Guy Maddin, whose association with SFFILM stretches back nearly three decades to 1989 when the Festival screened his directing debut Tales from the Gimli Hospital. A treasure trove of wit, cinephilia, intellectual curiosity and an intense streak of naughtiness, Maddin is a global superstar both for his beloved and provocative films and his legendary question and answer sessions. Guy has been a frequent guest of the Festival and from Jack Benny zingers to deep film analysis, he embodies what we all want be as culturally invested residents of this City by the Bay.

“We’ve long taken for granted that cinema is a dream, sometimes even a dream within a dream, and more dreams inside those. But what are the limits of the nested trance? How many such oneiric intoxications can be fit inside each other to elevate cinema to cyclone-bomb levels of dangerously compressed emotion trembling on the verge of detonation. I hope to prove, by discussing the strange idea of ‘five unshootable films,’ that the new ‘sleeping actor’ is the greatest actor, that the neuroses and childhood fears experienced in slumber have replaced the strenuous labors of the long-incumbent ‘waking’ thespian and finally ascended to the status of ultimate attainment in film. ‘AWAKE TO SLEEP!’ is the new battle cry! It’ll leave your eyes wide open! Dreamy clips galore!” – Guy Maddin