Matthew Rankin's The Twentieth Century is showing exclusively on Mubi in many countries starting February 15, 2021 in the series Festival Focus: Berlinale.The Twentieth Century is my first feature. As with all my short films, directing this film was akin to willfully relaunching the Hindenberg knowing full well that it’s going to blow up. Like a rutting salmon hurling himself ridiculously upstream, yearning to actually Die in the moment of his most creative outpouring, the images I am chasing are so difficult that they might well exceed my reproductive competence. Such was my process on this movie. The resultant film is an unbridled surrealist epic, an insurgent attack upon the biopic form and a lament for 21st Century nihilism. It is also an encyclopaedic effort to irritate my fellow Canadians.The film takes as its subject the youthful obsessions of Canada’s longest-serving prime minister, William Lyon Mackenzie King...
- 2/14/2021
- MUBI
Chicago – In a world gone a bit madder and sadder, the films of 2020 were a welcome escape from the travails of weekly reality. Without theater exhibition by and large, films had to be experienced on smaller home screens, shrinking bold cinematography and emphasizing the story.
Reflected in my 10 Best Films Of 2020 are those storyteller films, the escapes that told tales of our possibilities and hope. In lieu of complete normalcy in 2021, let’s at least get back to the theaters.
I begin by ranking the 25th film favorites through the 11th, with the option to click on the highlighted titles for reviews or associated interviews… 25th - Eurovision Song Contest, 24th - Da Five Bloods (Delroy Lindo symbolized a whole war in his performance), 23rd - Wonder Woman 1984 (we have met the villains and they are us), 22nd - The Hunt (sharpest satire in the tool shed), 21st - The Nest...
Reflected in my 10 Best Films Of 2020 are those storyteller films, the escapes that told tales of our possibilities and hope. In lieu of complete normalcy in 2021, let’s at least get back to the theaters.
I begin by ranking the 25th film favorites through the 11th, with the option to click on the highlighted titles for reviews or associated interviews… 25th - Eurovision Song Contest, 24th - Da Five Bloods (Delroy Lindo symbolized a whole war in his performance), 23rd - Wonder Woman 1984 (we have met the villains and they are us), 22nd - The Hunt (sharpest satire in the tool shed), 21st - The Nest...
- 1/3/2021
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
By: Patrick Gratton
Canadian history remembers William Lyon Mackenzie King as one of our most defining statesmen. King was the longest running Prime Minister to hold office in Ottawa, and a central ally to both Winston Churchill and Fdr, in mobilizing Canada in World War II. Historians commend Mackenzie King as a central rallying cry for a divided country, whose skill set helped him reach across the aisle, mending multiple differences and helping grow Canada’s Independence even as it remained a British colony.
In his feature film debut The Twentieth Century, Winnipeg-born Matthew Rankin subverts this story. Set in 1899 and told in ten chapters, the film omits all of the soon-to-be Prime Minister’s triumphs, focusing instead on Mackenzie King’s (Dan Bierne) candidacy to be the country’s leader. Rankins shows a steady hand, confidently orchestrating a film that’s equal parts German expressionism, 1920s melodrama and absurdist satire.
Canadian history remembers William Lyon Mackenzie King as one of our most defining statesmen. King was the longest running Prime Minister to hold office in Ottawa, and a central ally to both Winston Churchill and Fdr, in mobilizing Canada in World War II. Historians commend Mackenzie King as a central rallying cry for a divided country, whose skill set helped him reach across the aisle, mending multiple differences and helping grow Canada’s Independence even as it remained a British colony.
In his feature film debut The Twentieth Century, Winnipeg-born Matthew Rankin subverts this story. Set in 1899 and told in ten chapters, the film omits all of the soon-to-be Prime Minister’s triumphs, focusing instead on Mackenzie King’s (Dan Bierne) candidacy to be the country’s leader. Rankins shows a steady hand, confidently orchestrating a film that’s equal parts German expressionism, 1920s melodrama and absurdist satire.
- 12/17/2020
- by Patrick Gratton
- FilmExperience
Chicago – Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com features an audio review of the newly released “The Twentieth Century,” the debut of Canadian filmmaker Matthew Rankin. The film is a surreal retelling of Canadian history, specifically regarding former Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King.
Rating: 4.0/5.0
Dan Beirne is the real-life Canadian Pm, recognized as one of the greatest prime ministers in Canadian history, having served 27 years non-consecutively in the role during the first half of the 20th Century – the most time in that office ever – including guiding Canada through the World War II years. In the film, he is shown at the beginning of his career in 1899, vying for first time political office against his rival Arthur Meighen (an icy Brent Skagford).
“The Twentieth Century” is available now through Music Box at Home through MusicBoxTheatre.com. Check local listings for additional theaters and show times. For more information, click here. Featuring Dan Beirne,...
Rating: 4.0/5.0
Dan Beirne is the real-life Canadian Pm, recognized as one of the greatest prime ministers in Canadian history, having served 27 years non-consecutively in the role during the first half of the 20th Century – the most time in that office ever – including guiding Canada through the World War II years. In the film, he is shown at the beginning of his career in 1899, vying for first time political office against his rival Arthur Meighen (an icy Brent Skagford).
“The Twentieth Century” is available now through Music Box at Home through MusicBoxTheatre.com. Check local listings for additional theaters and show times. For more information, click here. Featuring Dan Beirne,...
- 12/1/2020
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSThe prolific, captivating Sean Connery has died. As critic Glenn Kenny writes in his obituary for Decider, Connery will always be "tied to the role of James Bond, [but] so many of Connery’s non-Bond roles were [...] fascinating, challenging, and cinematically important." Recommended VIEWINGGrasshopper Films' official trailer for the new 4k digital restoration of Manoel de Oliveira's 1981 Francisca, an adaptation of Agustina Bessa-Luís’ acclaimed novel. Oscilloscope has released the first trailer for The Twentieth Century, Matthew Rankine's dark comedy-drama that reimagines the life of former Canadian Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King. The film won the Fipresci prize in the Forum section of the 2019 Berlinale. The Asian Film Archive has announced Monographs 2020, a series of video essays commissioned and conceived during lockdown. Featuring a wide range of filmmakers, the series aims to offer "an...
- 11/4/2020
- MUBI
Part German Expressionist throwback, part tripped-out midnight movie acid trip, “The Twentieth” Century is a visionary, and highly fictionalized, portrait of the rise to power of former Canadian Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King. The former Prime Minister is played by Dan Beirne in this feature-length directorial debut from experimental filmmaker Matthew Rankin. Watch the wild and psychedelic trailer below.
Rankin’s film has drawn comparisons to the work of fellow Canadian director Guy Maddin, as well as Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, and even John Waters in its grotesque look at Canadian politics and identity. “The Twentieth Century” unfolds in the style of 1940s melodramas, but blends that with tinges of wartime propaganda films, and plenty more insanity.
Here’s the official synopsis, courtesy of Oscilloscope Laboratories:
Toronto, 1899. Aspiring young politician Mackenzie King (Dan Beirne) dreams of becoming the Prime Minister of Canada. But his romantic vacillation between...
Rankin’s film has drawn comparisons to the work of fellow Canadian director Guy Maddin, as well as Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, and even John Waters in its grotesque look at Canadian politics and identity. “The Twentieth Century” unfolds in the style of 1940s melodramas, but blends that with tinges of wartime propaganda films, and plenty more insanity.
Here’s the official synopsis, courtesy of Oscilloscope Laboratories:
Toronto, 1899. Aspiring young politician Mackenzie King (Dan Beirne) dreams of becoming the Prime Minister of Canada. But his romantic vacillation between...
- 10/29/2020
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Indiewire
"A colorized acid trip through historic hell." Oscilloscope Labs has unveiled the US trailer for Twentieth Century, a very strange and absurdly weird biopic of sorts. This premiered at the Toronto Film Festival last year, and also played at the Berlin, Cartagena, Bucheon, and L'Étrange Film Festivals this year. Renowned for his mesmerizing, gonzo biographical short films Mynarski Death Plummet and The Tesla World Light, filmmaker Matthew Rankin doubles down on his signature blend of historical and aesthetic abstraction with his debut feature, a bizarre biopic that re-imagines the formative years of the former Canadian Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King as a series of abject humiliations. This uber wacky, expressionism adventure stars Dan Beirne as Mackenzie, plus Sarianne Cormier, Catherine St-Laurent, Mikhaïl Ahooja, Brent Skagford, Seán Cullen, and Louis Negin. It's almost impossible to describe this film - some will hate it, some will go nuts for it. But at least it exists,...
- 10/29/2020
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
Best Friend Forever boards sales on Radu Jude’s Berlinale Forum title ‘Uppercase Print’ (exclusive)
Feature tells true story of student arrested by Communist Romania’s secret services after challenging regime of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.
Brussels-based sales company Best Friend Forever (Bff) has boarded world sales on Romanian director Radu Jude’s new political drama Uppercase Print ahead of its world premiere in the Berlinale’s Forum section.
An adaptation of 2013 play Typographic Capital Letters by Romanian playwright Gianina Carbunariu, it tells the true story of high school student Mugur Călinescu who was arrested in the early 1980s by Romania’s secret police agency, or Securitate, for graffiti criticising the regime of communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.
Brussels-based sales company Best Friend Forever (Bff) has boarded world sales on Romanian director Radu Jude’s new political drama Uppercase Print ahead of its world premiere in the Berlinale’s Forum section.
An adaptation of 2013 play Typographic Capital Letters by Romanian playwright Gianina Carbunariu, it tells the true story of high school student Mugur Călinescu who was arrested in the early 1980s by Romania’s secret police agency, or Securitate, for graffiti criticising the regime of communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.
- 1/21/2020
- by 1100388¦Melanie Goodfellow¦0¦
- ScreenDaily
The Twentieth Century, freshman filmmaker Matthew Rankin's offbeat biopic about Canada's legendary Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, took home best picture at the Los Cabos Film Festival on Saturday.
The Hollywood Reporter review out of the Toronto Film Festival, where The Twentieth Century had its world premiere, called the movie "proudly and perversely Canadian." Rankin's film won best Canadian first feature in Toronto.
In Los Cabos' Mexican competition section, best film went to writer-director Carlos Lenin's first feature, La Paloma y El Lobo (The Dove and the Wolf), a dark love story that bowed at Locarno in ...
The Hollywood Reporter review out of the Toronto Film Festival, where The Twentieth Century had its world premiere, called the movie "proudly and perversely Canadian." Rankin's film won best Canadian first feature in Toronto.
In Los Cabos' Mexican competition section, best film went to writer-director Carlos Lenin's first feature, La Paloma y El Lobo (The Dove and the Wolf), a dark love story that bowed at Locarno in ...
- 11/17/2019
- The Hollywood Reporter - Film + TV
The Twentieth Century, freshman filmmaker Matthew Rankin's offbeat biopic about Canada's legendary Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, on Saturday took home best picture honors at the Los Cabos Film Festival.
The Hollywood Reporter's review out of the Toronto International Film Festival, where the movie had its world premiere, called it "proudly and perversely Canadian." Rankin's film was tapped as best Canadian first feature at the fest.
In Los Cabos' Mexican competition section, best film honors went to writer-director Carlos Lenin's first feature, La Paloma y El Lobo (The Dove and the Wolf), a dark love story ...
The Hollywood Reporter's review out of the Toronto International Film Festival, where the movie had its world premiere, called it "proudly and perversely Canadian." Rankin's film was tapped as best Canadian first feature at the fest.
In Los Cabos' Mexican competition section, best film honors went to writer-director Carlos Lenin's first feature, La Paloma y El Lobo (The Dove and the Wolf), a dark love story ...
- 11/17/2019
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Few Canadian historical figures are known outside of Canada (or really even within Canada). William Lyon Mackenzie King, our longest-serving Prime Minister, might be one of them (at least in English Canada), but even to us, he is something of a mystery. Or maybe more accurately, he is remembered as much for his interest in spiritualism and talking to his dead mother, as he is for marshalling Canadian forces during World War II or expanding our national autonomy. Enter Matthew Rankin, a Winnipeg-born, Quebec-transplanted filmmaker, whose previous work in short films includes other biopics, such as The Tesla World Light and Mynarski: Death Plummet. Rankin has expanded his German Expressionist/Guy Maddin-esque/surrealist perspective to this feature length biopic of one of Canada's most enigmatic politicians. The...
[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...
[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...
- 10/15/2019
- Screen Anarchy
Look out: we have a new entry in the “Great Man” biopic subgenre, one that has spawned films as varied as John Ford’s The Long Gray Line and, uh, Jay Roach’s Trumbo. Joining the ranks is Matthew Rankin’s The Twentieth Century, which, with great aplomb, takes the piss out of Canadian history, showing us The (gradual) Taking of Power By William Lyon Mackenzie King, this nation’s 10th Prime Minister.
Already assuming that the majority of people reading this don’t recognize his name, Rankin takes upon a large aesthetic gambit that may alienate non-Canuck viewers further, shooting the movie almost entirely against a green-screen, making the film’s “exteriors” into cartoonish backgrounds. Indulging in geometry to a degree that would make Paul W.S. Anderson blush, the movie at times recalls both ’50s and ’60s animation as well as Soviet propaganda. It’s the most exciting kind of aesthetic pastiche,...
Already assuming that the majority of people reading this don’t recognize his name, Rankin takes upon a large aesthetic gambit that may alienate non-Canuck viewers further, shooting the movie almost entirely against a green-screen, making the film’s “exteriors” into cartoonish backgrounds. Indulging in geometry to a degree that would make Paul W.S. Anderson blush, the movie at times recalls both ’50s and ’60s animation as well as Soviet propaganda. It’s the most exciting kind of aesthetic pastiche,...
- 9/8/2019
- by Ethan Vestby
- The Film Stage
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