What could be more daring and anarchic than a film about the G7, starring Cate Blanchett as the German chancellor and co-directed by Guy Maddin, whose fervent imagination outsizes the gigantic, pulsating brain that features in Rumours(IFFR 2025)? The opportunity to hear them – in conversation – at IFFR.
Two-time Academy Award (Blue Jasmine, 2013, The Aviator, 2004) and four-time BAFTA winning actor, producer and artistic director, Cate Blanchett is also co-founder and partner of production company Dirty Films. She has presided over the juries at both Cannes and Venice film festivals and twice won Best Performance at Venice (Tár, 2022, I’m Not There, 2004). Amongst her wide-ranging humanitarian contributions, she is a Global Goodwill Ambassador for UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency.
Working across features, short films, gallery installations and performance for the last four decades, Guy Maddin’s (My Winnipeg, 2007, The Saddest Music in the World, 2003) singular cinematic projects have consistently and playfully pushed the boundaries of the form. He was the focus of an IFFR retrospective in 2003, the same year his 10-part peep-hole installation Cowards Bend the Knee premiered at the Festival.
Following a special screening of the political satire Rumours, Blanchett and Maddin, will come together for an expansive dialogue about their recent collaboration, the role of film festivals, the enduring power of the short film, and other wildly divergent topics, hosted by IFFR’s Managing Director, Clare Stewart.
Click on the button below to watch the recording of this Talk.
