Screen/Society--"Rumours" (Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, Galen Johnson, 2024)

RUMOURS

(Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, and Galen Johnson, 2024, 103 min, Canada, English, DCP)

--Director Guy Maddin in attendance for a Q&A following the screening

Ricocheting between comedy, apocalyptic horror, and swooning soap opera, RUMOURS follows the seven leaders of the world's wealthiest democracies at the annual G7 summit, where they attempt to draft a provisional statement regarding a global crisis. With unexpected, uproarious performances from a brilliant ensemble cast that includes Cate Blanchett, Alicia Vikander, and Charles Dance, these so-called leaders become spectacles of incompetence, contending with increasingly surreal obstacles in the misty woods as night falls and they realize they are suddenly alone. A genre-hopping satire of political ineptitude, the latest film from incomparable directors Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson and Galen Johnson is a journey into the absurd heart of power and institutional failure in a slowly burning world.

"The ineffectiveness of rhetorical politics and symbolic diplomacy is kookily but ruthlessly skewered in RUMOURS, a wildly entertaining shaggy-dog satire." - Variety

"Effortlessly hilarious and deceptively thought-provoking." - Robert Daniels