Name: Seances
Director: Guy Maddin
Genre: Mystery
Released: 2016-04-28
Duration: 13 min
Rating: 7.6
Cast: Mathieu Amalric, Céline Bonnier, Amira Casar, Adèle Haenel

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Seances (2016)

7.6

Runtime13 min

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Seances, co-created with the National Film Board of Canada, presents a wholly new way of experiencing film narrative. By dynamically generating a series of film sequences in unique configurations, potentially hundreds of thousands of new stories are conjured by code. Each will exist only in the moment—no pausing, scrubbing, or sharing—offering the audience one chance to see the generated film. This project, co-created by the ever imaginative Guy Maddin, is a visual discourse on the impact of loss within film. All the sequences pay homage to lost silent films from the early day of cinema. Seances is nostalgic but it is also frequently hilarious. Part of the joy and sadness of Seances is that many possible narratives are created but they can be only viewed once before they disappear forever.

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Seances, co-created by the imaginative director Guy Maddin in 2016, offers a wholly unique cinematic experience that blends mystery, nostalgia, and spontaneity. The film dynamically generates new narrative sequences in real-time, each existing only for a single viewing, paying homage to lost silent films and exploring the impact of loss in an innovative, frequently hilarious way.

About

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 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."