The Twentieth Century
2019 | 90 minutes | Canada
Director: Matthew Rankin
Writer: Matthew Rankin
Language: English
Toronto International Film Festival, Best Canadian First Feature Film
Vancouver Film Critics Circle, One to Watch
Vancouver Film Critics Circle, Best Actor in a Canadian Film
Los Cabos International Film Festival, Best Film
Winner of the Best Canadian First Feature Award at last September’s Toronto International Film Festival, Matthew Rankin’s freewheeling funhouse mirror biopic The Twentieth Century 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. You’ll never see Mackenzie King, or Canada, the same way again. Here at IFFO we say: Matthew Rankin for Prime Minister!
- Tom McSorley
Screenings
Directors in attendance
Preceded by the short film
Docking
Trevor reflects on his fear of dating.
Setting the stage for The Twentieth Century, an irreverent and consummately sexy portrayal of Canada’s federal government, Docking is a vivid… nay, explicit self-confrontation of the most intimate nature.
Matthew Rankin
The Twentieth Century
Trevor Anderson
Docking