A big brain and Cate Blanchett as the German Chancellor: these two characters appear in Rumours, but before we say more about the film, let’s start with a beautiful declaration of love. ‘No other festival has treated me as well as New Horizons. No other brings together so many passionate cineastes, and in such great numbers. I still reminisce about what a great festival it is!’ – this is how Guy Maddin, the hero of the retrospective at the 9th NH, describes his impressions of Wrocław.
Dear Guy, we reciprocate these feelings and today we are delighted to boast that your Rumours are going to be included in the programme of this year's New Horizons!
The 24th mBank New Horizons International Festival starts in less than a month: this year's edition runs from 18 to 28 July (and you can invite the festival into your homes through online screenings until 4 August). On 2 July, we will announce the full programme, and two days later ticket and online access sales will begin.
Rumours by Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson and Galen Johnson: politics, or a tale of zombies
After its premiere at Cannes, some critics jointly agreed that Rumours was the festival's strangest film – a jaundiced, yet delightfully absurd political satire. It is not surprising, as Guy Maddin – the hero of the legendary New Horizon retrospective – was one of the film’s directors. A group of world leaders – headed by Cate Blanchett as the German Chancellor, who have arrived for the G7 summit – are suddenly out of touch with the world and have to deal with an unexpected disaster. Around them appear reanimated corpses from thousands of years ago and a giant brain pulsating between the trees... Rumours can be simply read as a farce, but Maddin and the Johnson brothers' film hides much more. We live in an age where the vision of politicians running away from zombies, and getting lost in the fog no longer seems an exaggerated metaphor. Apart from Blanchett, the film also stars Alicia Vikander and Charles Dance. (description by Jakub Demiańczuk)
Guy Maddin: the New Horizonist from Canada
Director, screenwriter, cinematographer, editor, video installation artist – a one-man institution of the Canadian art, famous for his avant-garde films inspired by the cinema of the silent era, German expressionism and surrealism. He is the author of dozens of films awarded, among others, at Telluride, Toronto and Tehran festivals and an Emmy Award winner. For more than ten years, he has collaborated with brothers Evan and Galen Johnson, the filmmakers who, like Maddin, come from Winnipeg. Rumours is their third feature film together.