The Cinematheque

Vancouver Premiere

“A lively documentary … The film’s charisma has less to do with history and more to do with the hows and whys of the Winnipeg Film Group’s quixotic ethos and defiant resolve.”

Brad Wheeler, Globe & Mail

The pioneering prairie postmodernists Guy Maddin and John Paizs and the other fiercely independent filmmakers incubated in the peculiar hothouse known as the Winnipeg Film Group have earned the Manitoba capital a worldwide reputation (and cult status) as a hub of strange, subversive, and stylistically out-there cinema. This new documentary, co-directed by Dave Barber, longtime programmer of the Winnipeg Cinematheque, and Kevin Nikkel, a Winnipeg documentarian and animator, offers a warts-and-all history of the legendary co-op, founded in 1974, and surveys the many distinctive talents (Shawna Dempsey and Lorri Millan, Ed Akerman, Caroline Monnet, Sean Garrity, Danishka Esterhazy, others) who, along with Maddin and Paizs, have been nurtured in its often-unruly midst. Packed with film excerpts, rare footage, and terrific interviews, the documentary also sheds light on the important but underappreciated role Canada’s artist-run production centres have played in the development of our national cinema.

“Engaging and richly illuminating … A valuable record of a prolific and internationally influential Canadian production centre.” Tom McSorley, POV Magazine

In Person: Dave Barber, Kevin Nikkel