Overseas acclaim for films by Cannes-do Winnipeggers

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This article was published 21/05/2024 (887 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Four Winnipeg filmmakers are the unexpected darlings of this year’s Cannes Film Festival. And they accomplished it by letting their Winnipeg-infused freak flags fly.

Over the weekend, the 76th edition of the world’s most famous film festival, held in a resort town on the French Riviera, featured a star-studded première by collaborators Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson and Galen Johnson — the apocalyptic satire Rumours — in close proximity to Matthew Rankin’s second feature film, Universal Language.

Unlike Rumours, which was shot in Hungary, Universal Language was filmed largely in Winnipeg, confirms Rankin in an email interview from Cannes.

“It was shot from March 1 to 18 of 2023 at many of my favourite city landmarks, including the very lonesome house at 130 Fort St., the Driftwood Apartments, the Towne 8 Cinema and the Viscount Gort Hotel parking lot.”

Despite the familiar sites, the film portrays an alternate Winnipeg universe in which a growing Persian community is starting to make an indelible imprint on the city’s culture. Rankin himself plays a returning Winnipegger named Matthew who is first alienated but eventually enchanted by the transformation of his hometown.

The film gave Rankin the opportunity to pay his own personal homage to the city.

“I was trying to film the Winnipeg I love the most, its spaces and moods and absurdities, which owes a great debt to the material remnants of the long Steve Juba era, in which my late parents came of age,” Rankin says, referring to the two-decade tenure of mayor Stephen Juba between 1957 and 1977.

“I was trying to film the Winnipeg I love the most, its spaces and moods and absurdities.”

Of the two films, Rumours — which was co-produced by Winnipeg company Buffalo Gal Pictures — has the greater star power.

A fanciful tale of an apocalyptic G7 conference in which world leaders find themselves lost in a zombie-ridden forest, the film stars Oscar winners Cate Blanchett and Alicia Vikander, as well as an international cast including Charles Dance, Nikki Amuka-Bird and Roy Dupuis.

Asked about the premise at a Cannes news conference — a day after the film debuted to a lengthy standing ovation — Maddin said: “It happened spontaneously. We had been writing a few other scripts that were crammed with enough stupid ideas for 20 movies but we kept throwing them out.

“The G7 idea was in there and it kept crumpling itself and crawling out of the wastebasket and insisting on being made as a film.”

Maddin said he and the Johnson brothers were fascinated by “the public face of the G7” in which “world leaders and their spouses greet each other, regardless of ideology … even though one might eventually declare war against another.

“It just struck us as such a strange disconnect with what is really going on in the world,” Maddin said.

For her part, Australian actress Blanchett revealed at the news conference that she had long wanted to work with Maddin, saying she was an “enormous admirer.”

“The Green Fog I absolutely adore and My Winnipeg is one of my all-time favourite films,” the Tár star said. “They always seem to be adventures in cinema-making and they make narratives to things that shouldn’t have narratives. I always end up gasping and giggling and being somewhat horrified and offended by the work.

“As soon as I knew that Guy had heard of me, I wanted to get on the phone … It’s a little bit like a first date. You already know if you’re going to creatively sleep together or not.”

While Rankin’s mostly Winnipeg-based creative team may be comparatively unknown in Cannes, Rankin was enthused to shoot with them and help bring them to the international stage.

“It was a joy to work with a lot of my oldest and dearest collaborators, including the amazing art director Chad Giesbrecht and lighting genius Ryan Herdman, with whom I made my very first films,” Rankin said.

“Even the great Lorne Bailey, whose films I have always loved, joined the crew as best boy electric, which was a real thrill for me. (Filmmakers) John Paskievich and Darryl Nepinak came out to do cameos in the March frost, legendary River Heights filmmaker Dan Gerson snapped the set photos.

“All of this really meant so much to me. I really wouldn’t have got very far in life without all these people.”

Rankin also appreciated the chance to collaborate with the new generation of local filmmakers, singling out Omid Moterassed, “who came on wearing many hats as adjoint producer, art department, daily and spiritual guide” and young actors Allan Wise and Zhila Naghibzadeh.

“Our wrap party was in the Woodbine Hotel Beverage Room,” Rankin added. “It was wonderful.”

At the Rumours news conference, Blanchett did answer a nagging question about the film: What does the title refer to?

“I did confirm something with Galen last night,” Blanchett explained. “It was really weird that it never came up at rehearsal. Why the hell is this movie called Rumours?

“My husband had said: ‘Is that named after the Fleetwood Mac album?’ And Galen said it was.”

“It was on the list of 10 best album names, and Rumours was on there,” Galen Johnson confirmed, adding the creation of the album synced with the film’s action, which references past love affairs and one-night stands.

“The album was famously creatively fraught. Everybody was sleeping with each other. So it made sense to us.”

The reaction to both films has been positive in critical circles.

Of Universal Language, Stephen Saito of the Movable Feast wrote: “Amidst all the scenes of buildings that have seen better days still forming the city skyline, Rankin looks to the ground to find where the real growth can occur and already sees something beautiful start to blossom.”

In the Hollywood Reporter, Leslie Felperin said, “Rumours may arguably be Maddin’s most conventional film ever, or at least since The Saddest Music in the World (2003). That is, if you can call a film conventional that’s got furiously masturbating bog zombies, a giant brain the size of a hatchback, and an AI chatbot that catfishes pedophiles. All the same, it’s a hoot, even if the energy flags in the middle.”

randall.king.arts@gmail.com

Randall King
Writer

Randall King writes about film for the Winnipeg Free Press.