Rated: NR    Runtime: 96 mins.
Friday, June 29 - Wednesday, July 4

Equal parts childhood reminiscence, expressionist horror movie, teen detective serial and Grand Guignol reverie, BRAND UPON THE BRAIN! is a grand silent movie event custom conceived for the pomp and ceremony of a grand movie-palace. Shot in Seattle, this exhilarating exercise in stretching film vocabulary to its limits represents Guy Maddin’s work at its paradoxically most sophisticated and incautious!

Guy Maddin lazes away his under-stimulated youth with his teenage sister on the mysterious island that one day, he stands to inherit. They share this island with a horde of orphans all living together in the lighthouse which doubles as the orphanage. Their every move is vigilantly watched over by Guy’s overbearing and tyrannical mother from the top of the lighthouse while his father, a scientist and inventor, secretly works away in the basement morning noon and night. When the new parents of recently adopted children discover mysterious head
wounds on their young, teen detectives Wendy and Chance Hale – brother and sister sleuths known as the Lightbulb Kids – visit Guy’s island to launch into an investigation. Guy is weak at the knees as he falls hard into his first hormone driven crush for Wendy, while Sis, is rosy cheeked and flushed with love for Chance, a love that must be kept hidden from Mother at all costs. As the investigation progresses, it leads the kids into the darkest regions of revelation and repression and spins dangerously out of control as the terrible secrets of Guy’s family are laid bare… Official Site.

Written & directed by Guy Maddin. With Gretchen Krich, Sullivan Brown, Maya Lawson & Katherine E. Scharhon. 2006. Canada/USA. 35mm. Running time: 96 mins. Showtimes: Nighty at 7:00 & 8:50. Additional Saturday & Sunday matinees at (3:15) & 5:15.