Maddin, Manitoba and other movie delights

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This article was published 26/07/2023 (827 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Gimli International Film Festival kicks off today with a full five-day schedule featuring more than 90 films — features and shorts — in multiple venues in the lakeside town until Sunday.

True to its name, this international festival gives audiences a glimpse into cinema from around the world, but there’s no shortage of options to watch Manitoba films in Gimli this weekend.

Arutinae

Filmed at a family cabin in Matlock, Winnipeg-raised director Erin Buelow’s debut feature is an eerie mystery that tells the story of a struggling indie musician (Zorya Arrow) who gets a little bit more than she bargained for when she takes a sip of the lake water. “I wanted to tell the story of someone who’s searching for belonging and doesn’t quite find it,” Buelow says in a director’s statement. (Screening Saturday and Sunday.)

 

8 Rooms

Like Arutinae, Anita Louise Lebeau’s animated short takes viewers into a dream world, following a woman and her feline sidekick as they float in pursuit of a floating pushpin. In what promises to be a one-of-a-kind visual experience, Lebeau’s animated characters explore eight rooms created by contributing artists, composed of a variety of mixed media. (Saturday at 1 p.m. at Gimli Theatre.)

 

Ciset

RWB-trained dancer and Tla’amin First Nation member Cameron Fraser-Monroe sets this short film on the sandy dunes of a beach volleyball court, telling through movement a story of borders, colonization, tension and release. A duet between Fraser-Monroe and Winnipeg’s Emily Solstice Tait, who is of mixed Ojibwa and settler descent, Ciset is scored by Juno-nominated cellist Cris Derksen. (Saturday at 1 p.m. at Gimli Theatre.)

 

Diaspora

A story of migration and assimilation set on Winnipeg’s Selkirk Avenue, award-winning filmmaker Deco Dawson’s 2022 feature stars the Ukrainian actress Yulia Guzhva as a newcomer who is trying to make sense of her surroundings. Diaspora might be the most multilingual film ever shown at the fest, featuring dialogue in 25 languages. (Friday at 8:30 p.m. at Gimli Unitarian Church)

 

Late Summer

Up-and-coming director Ryan Steel, fresh off a Western Canadian Music Award nomination for his direction of Begonia’s video for Married By Elvis, brings his tale of summer-camp heartbreak to the shores of Lake Winnipeg for this year’s fest. Starring Dylan Lillie-Brine as the prototypical camp loner. (Saturday at 1 p.m. at Gimli Theatre)

 

Municipal Relaxation Module

Ever-inventive filmmaker Matthew Rankin (The Twentieth Century, Negativipeg) brings his latest short, which earned raves at the Toronto International Film Festival, to Gimli, complete with this invitingly bare description: Ken has an idea for a bench. In Rankin’s hands, who’s to say what happens next? (Saturday at 1 p.m. at Gimli Theatre)

 

Please Handle With Care

When Liway moves to Canada from the Philippines and begins to work, she soon starts sending goods back home in a box known as a balikbayan. Angeline Javier’s 2022 short traces the story of balikbayan boxes — and the billion-dollar industry that they support — from their start to present day. (Saturday at 1 p.m. at Gimli Theatre)

 

Seeking Fire

Cash rules everything around filmmakers Ian Bawa and Quan Luong, who examine the ways people across the country relate to money and financial independence in their latest short. For a pair of independent filmmakers accustomed to working on a shoestring, it’s an interesting focus, especially in the context of increasing inflation and the rising cost of living. (Friday at 1 p.m. at Gimli Theatre, Saturday at 5:30 p.m. at Lady of the Lake Theatre)

 

Spoon Me

Described as “an alternative film confronting constructs that subliminally shape our view of gender,” this experimental short was directed by York University student filmmakers Anna Holmen, Cherie Naito, Sylvia Mok and Giavanni Picarelli. It won best alternative short film at Toronto’s Couch Film Festival last year. (Thursday at 4:30 p.m. at Lady of the Lake, Friday at 6 p.m. at Gimli Unitarian Church)

 

A Guy Maddin Retrospective

A director forever connected to Gimli, Guy Maddin will bring a trio of his films to this year’s festival, including the redux version of his breakout 1988 feature Tales from the Gimli Hospital (Friday at 8:30 p.m. at Lady of the Lake Theatre). Also showing will be The Green Fog, Maddin’s tribute to and expansion of Alfred Hitchcock’s classic Vertigo (Sunday at 1 p.m. at Lady of the Lake) and Brand Upon the Brain!, his 2006 feature starring Isabella Rossellini, Erik Steffen Maahs and Sullivan Brown (Friday at 12:30 p.m. at Lady of the Lake)