The Enlightened Screen: Matt Rankin
Wednesday, March 16 / 8:30pm / Ottawa art gallery
“secret cinematic contraband” / The Twentieth Century / Talk with Matthew Rankin
The Enlightened Screen \
This ongoing IFFO series (along with Café Ex and “The Female Gaze”) features screenings and artist talks with Canada’s leading independent filmmakers. Last year, we showcased the work of writer-director Nicole Dorsey (Toronto) with an online interview and a virtual cinema screening of her debut feature, Black Conflux. Before it became part of IFFO, over its many previous years, the series presented the work of such Canadian indies as Peter Mettler, Allan Zweig, Carl Bessai, Wiebke von Carolsfeld, Gary Burns, Ashley Mackenzie, Catherine Martin, and others.
The Enlightened Screen at IFFO 2022 is proud to present another feature film debut by a very talented Canadian independent filmmaker, Matthew Rankin (Winnipeg). Matthew Rankin will attend the screening to present several short works he's calling 'secret cinematic contraband' — you'll have to be there in person to see what that contraband is! Rankin will also introduce and discuss The Twentieth Century, his incredibly imaginative, decidedly strange biopic of Canada's most eccentric Prime Minister, William Lyon MacKenzie King.
Feature presentation \
The Twentieth Century
2019 / 90 minutes / Canada
Director: Matthew Rankin
Writer: Matthew Rankin
Language: English
Berlin International Film Festival 2020, FIPRESCI Prize Forum - Matthew Rankin
Canadian Screen Awards 2020, Canadian Screen Award Achievement in Costume Design - Patricia McNeil, Achievement in Art Direction/Production Design - Dany Boivin, Achievement in Hair - Nermin Grbic
Gimli Film Festival 2020, On the Rise Award: Best Canadian Director to Watch - Matthew Rankin
Toronto International Film Festival 2019, Best Canadian First Feature Film - Matthew Rankin
Vancouver Film Critics Circle 2019, VFCC Award One to Watch - Matthew Rankin, Best Actor in a Canadian Film - Dan Beirne
Victoria Film Festival, Festival Prize Best Canadian First Feature - Matthew Rankin
politics \ prime ministers \ perversions
This is a premiere with a difference! Intended to be a prominent part of our COVID-cancelled IFFO 2020, The Twentieth Century has never screened in a cinema in Ottawa since capturing the Best Canadian First Feature Award at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival in pre-pandemic times. Matthew Rankin’s freewheeling funhouse mirror biopic explores the overheated, melodramatic phantasmagoria of Canada’s weirdest Prime Minister, William Lyon Mackenzie King. Following ‘Willy’ as he struggles to win the Liberal leadership, to wiggle out from under his domineering mother, and to overcome his intense erotic attraction to footwear, The Twentieth Century tells the tale of ambition in a politically fractured country trying to climb out of its colonial playpen into fully fledged adult nationhood. This “…brilliantly conjured…Heritage Minute from hell…” (TIFF 2019) is an extraordinary achievement in indie filmmaking, from its luminous artificial sets to its startling animated sequences to its deeply subversive look at political power in Canada. With its echoes of Guy Maddin, Wes Anderson, German Expressionism, and Soviet Montage, Rankin’s film is a delirious cinematic delight, an utterly original re-imagining of Canada’s history. And finally, we can see it properly on a big screen!
- Tom McSorley
Short films \
Matt is bringing some ‘secret cinematic contraband’ with him as a mystery bonus… you’ll have to wait and see!
guest \
Matthew Rankin
Director + Writer of The Twentieth Century
Matthew Rankin was born in Winnipeg and studied history at McGill and Université Laval. He is the director of some 30 short films and one feature which have been the object of both critical acclaim and outraged censorial attack. Matthew’s work has been presented at Sundance, SXSW, TIFF, Annecy, Ottawa International Animation, the Berlinale, Cannes Critics Week and on the Criterion Channel. His feature film, The Twentieth Century (2019), was given an award at TIFF for Best Canadian First Feature as well as the FIPRESCI Prize of the International Film Critics at the Berlinale. He works in English, French and, increasingly, Esperanto.