Winnipeg-based filmmaker Matthew Holm has been contriving his rare and precious cinematic baubles since 2000. Holm’s approach to filmmaking is simple: take an established genre he loves (Arctic exploration pictures, baseball movies, dirigible films and musical westerns so far) and make his own short, poetically precise version of it, lovingly handcrafted to emphasize those aspects of the genre he is most taken with.
His first film, The Lost Bundefjord Expedition (2000), dramatized the first attempt to manhaul across the formidable inland ocean of Lake Winnipeg, and the tragically hilarious results garnered several awards for Holm. His second, Spring Chickens (2002), was based on an eerie dream, and told the uncanny tale of the Grunthal Chickens baseball team and their legendary, superannuated batsman Jam Jam Samson, played by Weakerthans singer John K. Samson.
His third picture was lost almost as soon as it was finished, so has very rarely been seen. Zeppelin Pilot is Holm’s most spectacular and ambitious project: a WWI tale of lighter-than-air warfare from the Hun’s side of things. Holm’s fourth short, a commissioned work called Man of the North-West made to mark the thirtieth anniversary of the storied cooperative the Winnipeg Film Group, is a Mounted Police musical with entirely sung dialogue and a cast of hilarious numbskulls.
With Caelum Vatnsdal, Holm has directed two documentaries. Teardrops in the Snow (2003) is an eccentric behind-the-scenes peek into the making of Guy Maddin’s biggest movie, The Saddest Music in the World; while Journey to Cannibal Island takes viewers on a perilous journey to a mysterious island in the middle of Canada.
Price: 2.200 Isk. for Matt Holm, Sargent & Victor, MAGUS (RE) GENESIS,
Tickets: Iðnó Theatre, Vonarstræti 3, 101 Reykjavík, one hour before begin. Or: order tickets at [email protected] / 5272102