Guy Maddin (born February 28, 1956 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada) is a writer and director of both features and short films. His most distinctive quality is his fondness for recreating the look and style of silent or early sound era films. While Maddin strives to recreate the styles and moods of early film melodramas, Weimar Republic German silent films, and 1920s Soviet agit-prop, his own distinct personal style lies in his use of clichés, psychosexual situations, bizarre stories and humor. It is this self-conscious and surreal merging of early film-making techniques with a post-modern sensibility that give Maddin's films their distinct style.
Maddin's first film was the 1986 short The Dead Father. His first feature film was Tales From the Gimli Hospital.
His latest work Brand upon the Brain! was made in collaboration with the Seattle-based The Film Company, the US's first non-profit film studio. It shares a building space with the Northwest Film Forum.
