Cate Blanchett, right, and director Guy Maddin speak during the Premiere of Rumors at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, on Feb. 1 in Rotterdam, Netherlands.MARCO DE SWART/AFP/Getty Images
There are a few crucial life lessons that Canadian filmmaker Guy Maddin has learned in his 68 years roaming this planet (mostly Winnipeg).
For starters: Always be prepared before day one of shooting, to ensure a relatively smooth production process. Also: To boost your financing odds, try your best to cast an internationally known actor, such as Isabella Rossellini or Cate Blanchett. And whenever in doubt, just stick a big ol’ throbbing brain into the middle of a scene to spice things up, as in his latest film, the “cautionary dramedy cum erotico-ministerial techno-thriller and provisional Götterdämmerung” Rumours.
Yet Maddin never considered himself to be an official font of wisdom – a genuine industry mentor – until he was asked to become part of the Canadian Artists Network. The advocacy group, which was founded in 2011, is dedicated to supporting senior artists across the country, with its guiding philosophy focused on the fact that the artistic gene does not simply shut off past the age of 60.
To further its cause, CAN has developed an intergenerational mentorship initiative that pairs established artists with younger Canadians just beginning their cultural careers. So far, the program has seen filmmaker Atom Egoyan (64) mentor director Dorothy A. Atabong on her new feature, author Zainab Amadahy (69) help shape writer Anubha Mehta’s new manuscript, and Maddin oversee the work of Montreal filmmaker Sonia Gemmiti.
“No one has ever described me as a wise person, but I guess I do have some wisdom to depart,” Maddin says with a laugh. “As a filmmaker, you don’t even think of yourself as a senior – you’re young until you die. I’d never park in senior parking or get the senior discount at dinner. But all of a sudden I was asked to do this, and it suddenly occurred to me: Wow, that’s me.”
Maddin, who has always been obsessed with age – “I always read the birth and death dates of my favourite actors and authors to figure out what they were making when they were my age” – says that while there are some hyperactive senior filmmakers out there (Clint Eastwood, Martin Scorsese), there is a sense of ageism in the industry that organizations such as CAN could help combat.
“I would notice that a lot of people in Hollywood get less active around the age of 65. Maybe filmmakers are considered less bankable as they get older,” the director says. “But the great thing about this is that you connect with someone who is actually listening and wants to learn. A lot of it is practical advice, but Sonia took it all to heart. She was way more prepared for her shoot than I’ve ever been.”
Maddin felt an especial urge to help the next generation of filmmakers given that he credits his own career to those who took him under their wings when he was starting out.
“I wouldn’t have been a filmmaker if I hadn’t run into a few people here in Winnipeg. John Pais came to a class I was auditing and showed a film he had made here, and I was astonished. He let me pick his brain on sets and I modelled my own approach on him. And then that led to me hanging around with people from the Winnipeg Film Group. It just made sense.”
Maddin thinks that CAN’s mentorship program may have unintentionally cracked the code when it comes to navigating the Canadian film industry, which can be a beast to decipher for even the most ambitious and well-resourced director.
“It’s almost like we should be obliged to serve as mentors, like a year of military service – though pity the poor person who gets me and doesn’t want me, as I’m not a paragon of box-office success,” Maddin says. “But I just believe in role modelling. I’m always a utopian, and the idea of Telefilm doing something like this is a great way to cross-pollinate ideas and innovations and influences.”
Not that Maddin is planning to limit himself to the life of a mentee. Rumours, which was released last year and co-directed by brothers Evan and Galen Johnson, has become one of the most popular films of his career, setting the stage for his next project.
“Rumours has brought me up to this level, which I don’t have to stay at, of making films that are healthily financed with stars, and I’m going to try to stay at that for a while. And Evan, Galen and I have a few projects – they’re big, not mega-big, but healthy,” Maddin says. “If I was a 35-year-old filmmaker, they’d be the logical next step of something to make. But we’ll see.”
