NFB Collection
The Forbidden Room
20152 h 8 minFilm: Fiction
Direction: Evan JohnsonGuy Maddin
Production: David ChristensenNiv FichmanJody ShapiroFrançois-Pierre ClavelPhyllis LaingGuy Maddin (Buffalo Gal Pictures Inc.)Phoebe Greenberg (Phi Films)Penny Mancuso (Phi Films)
Script: Guy MaddinEvan JohnsonRobert Kotyk
A Buffalo Gal Pictures and Phi Films Production in co-production with the National Film Board of Canada.
The Forbidden Room is Guy Maddin’s ultimate epic phantasmagoria. Honouring classic cinema while electrocuting it with energy, this Russian nesting doll of a film begins (after a prologue on how to take a bath) with the crew of a doomed submarine chewing flapjacks in a desperate attempt to breathe the oxygen within. Suddenly, impossibly, a lost woodsman wanders into their company and tells his tale of escaping from a fearsome clan of cave dwellers. From here, Maddin and co-director Evan Johnson take us high into the air, around the world, and into dreamscapes, spinning tales of amnesia, captivity, deception and murder, skeleton women and vampire bananas. Playing like some glorious meeting between Italo Calvino, Sergei Eisenstein and a perverted six year-old child, The Forbidden Room is Maddin's grand ode to lost cinema. Created with the help of master poet John Ashbery, the film features Mathieu Amalric, Udo Kier, Charlotte Rampling, Geraldine Chaplin, Roy Dupuis, Clara Furey, Louis Negin, Maria de Medeiros, Jacques Nolot, Adèle Haenel, Amira Casar & Elina Löwensohn as a cavalcade of misfits, thieves and lovers, all joined in the joyful delirium of the kaleidoscopic viewing experience.
Subject categories
- Psychology and Psychiatry > Emotional LifeIndividual in Society
- Social Issues > Individual in Society
Credits
- casting
- Rosina Bucci
- Alexandre Nazarian
- costume designer
- Elodie Mard
- Yso South
- Julie Charland
- colour
- Evan Johnson
- Galen Johnson
- effects
- Evan Johnson
- Galen Johnson
- title design
- Galen Johnson
- film editor
- John Gurdebeke
- production designer
- Galen Johnson
- art director
- Brigitte Henry
- Chris Lavis
- Maciek Szczerbowski
- construction foreman
- Geoff Levine
- director of photography
- Stephanie Weber Biron
- Ben Kasulke
- supervising producer
- Jean Du Toit
- Liz Jarvis
- Emmanuelle Héroux
- executive producer
- David Christensen
- Niv Fichman
- Jody Shapiro
- François-Pierre Clavel
- producer
- Phyllis Laing
- Guy Maddin
- David Christensen
- Phoebe Greenberg
- Penny Mancuso
- writer
- Guy Maddin
- Evan Johnson
- Robert Kotyk
- additional writer
- Kim Morgan
- John Ashbery
- co-director
- Evan Johnson
- director
- Guy Maddin
- cast
- Roy Dupuis
- Clara Furey
- Louis Negin
- Graham Ashmore
- Angela La Muse Senyshyn
- Kimmi Melnychuk
- Charlotte Rampling
- Alex Bisping
- Gregory Hlady
- Kent McQuaid
- Melissa Trainor
- Kyle Gatehouse
- Victor Andrés Trelles Turgeon
- Neil Napier
- Noel Burton
- Marie Brassard
- Darcy Fehr
- Pamela Iveta
- Catherine Treskow
- Geraldine Chaplin
- André Wilms
- Romano Orzari
- Céline Bonnier
- Slimane Dazi
- Jacques Nolot
- Caroline Dhavernas
- Paul Ahmarani
- Judith Baribeau
- Victoria Diamond
- Mistaya Hemingway
- Mathilda Ekoe
- Lewis Furey
- Éric Robidoux
- Karine Vanasse
- Sienna Mazzone
- Kathia Rock
- John Churchill
- Matthew Comeau
- Alexandre Skeret
- Sherpa Macilu
- Mathieu Amalric
- Jean-François Stevenin
- Amira Casar
- Vasco Bailly-Gentaud
- Maria de Medeiros
- Christophe Paou
- Miguel Cueva
- Andreas Aspergis
- Ariane Labed
- Arthur Holden
- Sophie Desmarais
- Adèle Haenel
- Marie-Sophie Roy
- Anthony Lemke
- Victoire Dubois
- Elina Lowensohn
- Kim Morgan
- Udo Kier
- Luce Vigo