FALL 2007
Special Live Cinematic Spectacle at the Cinerama October 10 - 11
35mm print run at Northwest Film Forum October 12 - 15
Tickets for live Cinerama performance: $20/NWFF members, $25/general
Tickets for 35mm print run at NWFF: $5/NWFF members, $6/seniors and children, $8.50/general
Light a path for the risen one, he lives! Surreal, satiric and surprisingly touching, Guy Maddin's remembrance in twelve chapters finally makes it way to Seattle! What better context for BRAND UPON THE BRAIN! than in NWFF's Local Sightings Film Festival? We're pleased to present two live performances at the Cinerama, and four nights of the print at NWFF of perhaps the greatest work of cinema to have ever been produced by and with Seattleites. Maddin doesn't just make movies -- he makes unique, exquisitely beautiful fetish objects for film lovers, harking back to the early, euphoric days of silent cinema. Maddin's tale of horror, lesbianism and a domineering mother works first as camp before it plunges into one of the strangest, and most potent, metaphors for the childhood traumas buried during adulthood, but confronted at the end of a parent's life. Puppy love and adult lust converge in this grainy, humor-ridden "silent movie" that will certainly leave a brand upon your brain.
More about BRAND UPON THE BRAIN!
October 10 - 11 special LIVE show, with all sound being created at the Cinerama, featuring a narrator, orchestra, a castrato, and the Aono Jikken Ensemble as foley artists
Wednesday October 10 Narrator: Karen Black
Thursday October 11 Narrator: Guy Maddin
October 12 - 15 at Northwest Film Forum, 35mm print-run with married, prerecorded soundtrack and narration by Isabella Rossellini (Fri-Mon at 7, 9:15pm)
Visit BRAND's official website
Learn more about NWFF's Local Sightings Film Festival
"Nuttily wonderful. One of the year's 10 best films. Once again, Mr. Maddin has ransacked film history and his own delirious imagination to create a work like none other: a silently shot film about a man who, on revisiting his childhood home, hurtles unto a past where orphan children, coy lesbian lovers, and a mad scientist converge. Delightful!" -Manohla Dargis, NEW YORK TIMES
"***1/2! Unlike anything out there." –NEW YORK POST
"It's an astonishing film: weird, obsessed, drawing on subterranean impulses, hypnotic." -Roger Ebert, CHICAGO SUN TIMES
Featuring an original score, BRAND! has been earning unqualified raves during 9 months on the festival circuit, including Festival-best mentions at the 2006 Toronto Film Festival, 2006 New York Film Festival, and the 2007 Berlinale.
Surreal, satiric and surprisingly touching, Maddin's film looks at the secret lives of families in a work that is equal parts childhood reminiscence, Expressionist horror movie, teen detective serial and Grand Guignol reverie. Guy Maddin's latest delirious creation is a silent film like none you have ever seen before.
Whatever are young "Guy Maddin's" parents really up to in their lighthouse home/orphanage on a chilly remote island? Overbearing Mother (Gretchen Krich) tracks her son's (Sullivan Brown) every move, bellowing for him to come home over the "Aerophone" just as something interesting is about to happen! And poor Sis (Maya Lawson), his older sister (who is rapidly blossoming into a young woman) -- Mother will never let her have any fun! The intrigue continues as deranged Mother, hellbent on restoring her youth and sinister Scientist-Father (Todd Jefferson Moore) who is sequestered night and day in his basement laboratory, engage in diabolical, secret experimentation. When new parents of recently adopted children from the orphanage notice strange wounds on the youngsters' necks, a pair of teen sleuths, Wendy (Katherine E. Scharhon) and her brother Chance, known as "The Lightbulb Kids," appear on the island to investigate -- and in the process, inspire Guy's first crush and Sis' first love affair. The lurid family secrets that unfold are positively shocking!
The film was written and directed by Guy Maddin. George Toles is the co-writer. Benjamin Kasulke is the Cinematographer. The film is Executive Produced by Jody Shapiro, Philip Wohlstetter and A.J. Epstein. The Associate Producer is Brian Grant. Amy E. Jacobson and Gregg Lachow are the Producers.
BRAND UPON THE BRAIN!, Maddin's first production filmed outside of his native Winnipeg, was produced by The Film Company, a unique, Seattle-based independent film studio founded in 2004 by filmmaker Gregg Lachow (who directed/produced his own modern day "silent" film with live components, SILENCE! in 2001). Long-time Lachow collaborator Jamie Hook is Co-President with Lachow.