Winnipeg filmmaker Guy Maddin is finally going to the Cannes Film Festival, his first trip to the prestigious event on the French Riviera, in support of the feature film Rumours, co-directed by a local triumvirate that includes Evan Johnson and Galen Johnson.
In an email interview, Maddin, 68, cheekily calls the event “the last satisfying step of my 40-year plan to get there.”
“I’d like to say it means something. It might just mean I’ve persisted at filmmaking long enough,” he says.
MIKE DEAL / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS
Guy Maddin’s new movie Rumours follows seven world leaders who become lost in the woods during a G7 summit.
It is not technically the first Maddin film to play the festival. To his surprise, The Saddest Music in the World helmer learned a few days ago that his short The Heart of the World played Directors Fortnight at Cannes in 2001.
“I had no idea. I remember my producer Niv Fichman downplaying the appearance at the time, making it sound like we had rented a tent on the beach to play the short on a video monitor, but it really was in the festival,” he says.
“I’ll have to ask Niv for my special participation ribbon.”
The festival, which begins May 14, is a glittery affair historically associated with filmmakers such as François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard or American mavericks such as Martin Scorsese or Francis Ford Coppola. (The glamour component is sufficiently mandatory that, in 2015, actresses were stopped from entering a première wearing flat-soled shoes, a scandal that became known as “Heelgate.”)
“Frankly, I’ve never made Cannes-type films before,” Maddin says. “Everyone who’d heard of me knew that, especially me.
“But with my co-directors, Evan and Galen Johnson, elevating the work and changing its style, and movie stars with Oscars (Cate Blanchett and Alicia Vikander) coming on board, it was suddenly possible to fill out the cast with other veterans of the Cannes red carpet and — voilà! We’re all going.”
Maddin says he’s especially fortunate to have young American filmmaker Ari Aster (Hereditary, Midsommar) as one of the movie’s executive producers.
“Everyone in the business wants to work with him, so throwing his name around gets emails answered,” Maddin says.
For his part, Aster has high praise for the dark comedy, whose international cast also includes Charles Dance, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Roy Dupuis and Takehiro Hira. He told Deadline on Tuesday: “Rumours is stoopid and hilarious and wonderful, and it features the best cast ever assembled. The spirit of Buñuel and Monty Python and overwrought ’70s television (and of course the Maddin/Johnson sensibility, which has no real analogue) is alive and strange.”
Rumours follows seven world leaders who become lost in the woods during the annual G7 summit while trying to draft a statement regarding a global crisis.
“It feels great representing Manitoba on the Croisette,” Maddin says, referring to the famous street that runs along the Cannes shoreline.
“Maybe while I’m there, the Jets will be playing hair-raising games while I sleep! It would be great if they were still playing in mid-May.”
Producer Liz Jarvis of Winnipeg’s Buffalo Gal Pictures says Rumours should open in theatres later this year.
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