Tales From Winnipeg - Matchbox Cineclub
Matchbox CineclubThe Winnipeg Film Group is a film co-operative founded in 1974 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada by a ragtag bunch of independent filmmakers. They were different than any other film group in the country, as they insisted on producing films they wanted to see. By ignoring traditional rules of cinema, the Winnipeg Film Group brought a unique energy to their films, turning Winnipeg into a hub for innovative and experimental filmmaking. Matchbox Cineclub celebrates the Winnipeg Film Group with its online program Tales From Winnipeg.
Guy Maddin’s masterpiece Cowards Bend the Knee kicks off the event with a new score by Ela Orleans. Shot entirely on Super-8mm film, the film is entirely in black and white and reminiscent of silent films with the absence of dialogue and the inclusion of intertitles to tell the story. Cowards Bend the Knee follows a fictional Guy Maddin (Darcy Fehr), a star hockey player, as he falls in love with numerous women and also believes that he is possessed by the hands of a murdered father who seeks revenge on his killer. Along with the black and white and silence, Cowards Bend the Knee feels like a bizarre dream due to the shaky camera and hard editing cuts. Ela Orleans’ new score adds to the chaos and melancholia, heightening the tension of film’s events.
John Paizs is another key figure to come out of the Winnipeg Film Group, and his 1985 film Crime Wave was the first to put the co-operative on the map, screening at the Toronto International Film Festival. Matchbox Cineclub is screening a 2k restoration of Crime Wave for Tales From Winnipeg. The film is a surrealist comedy that follows Steven Penny (John Paizs), a struggling screenwriter who lives above a suburban family’s garage and only writes by the light of a streetlamp. Penny never speaks for the film’s duration, instead everything is narrated by the family’s young daughter Kim (Eva Kovacs), who has a crush on Penny. The surrealism and comedy come from Penny’s inability to write middles to his stories. The restoration brings out the many details of Crime Wave, as the film is designed to emulate colour crime pictures and educational films of the 1950s.
Finally, Tales From Winnipeg concludes with a 2017 documentary entitled Tales from the Winnipeg Film Group. The documentary chronicles the group’s 1974 origins as an artist-run film co-operative and what made them so different than any other group working in Canada. Tales from the Winnipeg Film Group film discusses the first films to come out of the group, like Rabbit Pie, before moving on to John Paizs’ Crime Wave and how the group is operating in present times – still operating as a hub for aspiring filmmakers and attracting Black, Indigenous and other filmmakers of colour. The documentary gives the viewer the background as to what led to the creation of such unique and experimental films by the likes of Guy Maddin and John Paizs.
Along with these three films, Matchbox Cineclub’s Tales From Winnipeg program also features a range of bonus content: a zine, Q&As, artwork and an exclusive interview with Guy Maddin. The event runs online from August 28-30 and is presented with optional English captions and French subtitles. Tickets can be purchases on a sliding scale. Visit Matchbox Cineclub for more information.