The only film you will ever see in your entire life to feature a gorgeous female amputee whose artificial glass legs are filled with beer! Intrigued' Maybe even a little thirsty' Don't worry, the fevered imagination of cult Canadian director (and MIFF regular) Guy Maddin doesn't stop there.

Set in Winnipeg during the Great Depression, the film revolves around a worldwide contest announced by the legless, glamorous beer baroness, Lady Helen Port-Huntly (Isabella Rossellini) to find the saddest music in the world. It's a ploy designed to increase the sales of her brew. To a comically diabolical plot add the Kent family: Chester, a failed Broadway impresario, his war veteran brother Roderick and their father, the alcoholic doctor Fyodor Kent, a man tortured by his dark role in Lady Port-Huntly's amputations. And what of the mysterious Narcissa, an amnesiac, nymphomaniac, sleepwalker romantically linked to both brothers'

'a surrealist whirl of crackpot characters, expressionistic sets, glimmering cinematography and musical numbers satirizing old Hollywood musicals... the work of a filmmaker in total control of his craft.' -The Hollywood Reporter

,i>D Guy Maddin P Niv Fichman, Jody Shapiro S Guy Maddin, George Toles WS Rhombus International Inc. TD 35mm/Col, B&W/2003/99mins

Guy Maddin was born in Winnipeg, Canada in 1956. Films include: Dead Father (1986), Tyro (1990), Fleshpots of Antiquity (2000), Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary (MIFF 2003).