Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.

A man in a smoking jacket extolls the joys of a good bath. Three sailors trapped in a submarine look for help, even as an angelic lumberjack finds his way on board in search of the orgies of the clan of the cave bear. Outside, somewhere a volcano is erupting, a butler is murdering and a ghost is returning in a never ending confusion of interlinked stories as complex of chinese boxes. But will our heroes ever reach the mystery of the Forbidden Room?

The Forbidden Room is also the name of a new film the showed at the Toronto International Film Festival. Winnipeg filmmaker Guy Maddin is known for his tales of twisted nostalgia, his eerie retakes of Canadian history, and comical melodramas done in new interpretations of archaic styles. He’s one of the few directors that can make an art film that is totally enjoyable and funny. His amazing movies include Tales from the Gimli Hospital, and My Winnipeg. Co-directed by Evan Johnson this film adds new artistic and editing techniques to bring it to mind-blowing levels of beauteous artistic mayhem, unfathomability and WTF-ness.

I spoke to director Guy Maddin and co-director Evan Johnson at #TIFF15. We talked about: seances to lost cinema, Paris, the Centre Pompidou, the Phi Centre, Quebec, NFB, Louis Negin’s scrotum, Pierre & Gilles, Carl Dreyer, Roy Dupuis, instructional films, John Ashbury’s writing, exploitation movies, editing techniques, Guy Maddin’s mojo, analog vs digital film, Havana, women in skeleton unitards …and more!

The Forbidden Room opens today in Toronto.

Photos of Guy Maddin and Evan Johnson by Jeff Harris.