Canadian Auteur Guy Maddin World Premiering New Film at 2020 Berlinale
Guy Maddin is back with a new short film. A collaboration with brothers Evan Johnson and Galen Johnson, Stump the Guesser has its world premiere this week at the 2020 Berlin International Film Festival. It screens in the Berlinale Shorts III program.
Over the last thirty-plus years, Maddin has presented over a dozen projects at the Berlinale. The Canadian auteur’s last outing was in 2018 when he screened the short film Accidence (2018) alongside his stunning found footage homage to Vertigo, The Green Fog (2017). Both projects are co-directed by the Johnsons. Other films he’s brought to the festival include The Forbidden Room (2015), Keyhole (2011), My Winnipeg (2007), and Tales From the Gimli Hospital (1988). The Berlinale also put the director to work in 2011 when Maddin served on the festival’s jury.
As for Stump the Guesser, the 19-minute short sounds as weird and wild as Maddin’s previous works. Starring Adam Brooks, Stephanie Berrington, and Brent Neale, the festival’s website describes the film’s plot as follows:
He works at the fairground as “Stump the Guesser”, who can guess anything for a fee. But suddenly his tricks stop working. And then he unwittingly falls in love with his sister whom he believed to be lost. He sets out to scientifically disprove the theory of heredity and marry his beloved as soon as possible. An absurdist firework of a silent film in black and white.
Below are scenes and images from the short that Maddin and Galen Johnson shared via Instagram. UPDATE 2/26: Telefilm Canada, who helped fund the film, has shared a promo video featuring the three directors. See below.
The Berlinale kicked off last week with the world premiere of Philippe Falardeau’s My Salinger Year starring Margaret Qualley. So far, festival standouts include Christian Petzold’s Undine, Victor Kossakovsky’s black-and-white pig documentary Gunda, Matteo Garrone’s Pinocchio, and Kelly Reichardt’s First Cow. Still to come are the much-anticipated premieres of Sally Potter’s The Roads Not Taken, Michael Venus’s Sleep, Jóhann Jóhannsson’s Last and First Men, and Hong Sangsoo’s The Woman Who Ran.
The Berlinale runs through March 3, 2020. For additional information, visit the festival’s website.
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Made a thing with Guy & Evan! STUMP THE GUESSER. World premiere Berlinale Feb 2020