Underplayed Gems

Night Mayor (2009)

Night Mayor poster
Directed by
Guy Maddin
Genre
science fiction film
Country
Canada
Runtime
14 min
Rating
6.2 of 10 from 4 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
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The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

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How it feels

In 1939 a fictional inventor in Winnipeg uses the Aurora Borealis to beam images of Canada across the country. The Canadian government stops his illegal broadcast. The film weaves together archival footage and a story about a dreamlike device.

dreamlikenostalgicwhimsicalexperimentalvisually lushmelancholiccerebralplayful

What happens

Night Mayor is a 2009 short film by Guy Maddin, about a fictional inventor in Winnipeg who uses the Aurora Borealis to broadcast images of Canada from coast to coast in 1939, until the Canadian government shuts down his illegal project. The National Film Board of Canada, which was founded in 1939, commissioned Maddin to create a film for its 70th anniversary. In making Night Mayor, Maddin was inspired by his experience researching the NFB's film archives for his 2007 film My Winnipeg, stating: “I lost myself for hours, days even, among those dreamy images, constantly finding shots and sequences I’d have been very proud to have created myself. So I had to content myself with including them in this new Film Board project, and hopefully magicking together a framework that was worthy of them.” The film's main character uses a fictional device called the "Telemelodium" to broadcast his images, which is based on the Telharmonium, an early electronic musical instrument. Night Mayor was produced by the NFB in Winnipeg and received the Best Experimental Short award at the 2010 South by Southwest festival. It premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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