Spiritismes (2014)

Original title

Seances

Directed by

Guy Maddin

Genre

drama film, silent film

Country

France, Canada

Runtime

13 min

Rating

6.7 of 10 from 6 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

This is a silent film from a larger interactive project that recreates lost films. The director and crew made short movies quickly, treating each shoot like a séance to channel old cinema.

experimentalnostalgicfragmenteddreamlikeplayfulsurrealintimatemelancholic

What happens

Seances is a 2016 interactive project by filmmaker and installation artist Guy Maddin, with co-creators Evan Johnson and Galen Johnson, and the National Film Board of Canada, combining Maddin's recreations of lost films with an algorithmic film generator that allows for multiple storytelling permutations. Maddin began the project in 2012 in Paris, France, shooting footage for 18 films at the Centre Georges Pompidou (this installation was titled Spiritismes, the French word for "seances", leading to press confusion about the project title) and continued shooting footage for an additional 12 films at the Phi Centre in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The Paris and Montreal shoots each took three weeks, with Maddin completing one short film of approximately 15–20 minutes each day. The shoots were also presented as art installation projects, during which Maddin, along with the cast and crew, held a “séance” during which Maddin "invite[d] the spirit of a lost photoplay to possess them." On December 31st, 2025, the project became inactive on the National Film Board's website, as "the technology it relied on is no longer compatible with the updated standards of [its] platform." (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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