Guy Maddin

Guy Maddin
Guy Maddin in 2013
Born	(1956-02-28) February 28, 1956 (age 60) Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Occupation	Film director, producer, cinematographer, installation artist, screen-writer and author.
Spouse(s)	Martha Jane Waugh (1976–79) Elise Moore (1995–97) Kim Morgan (2010–present)
Children	Jilian Maddin
Parent(s)	Charles and Herdis Maddin

Guy Maddin, CM OM (born February 28, 1956) is a Canadian screenwriter, director, author, cinematographer and film editor of both features and short films, as well as an installation artist, from Winnipeg, Manitoba. His most distinctive quality is his penchant for recreating the look and style of silent or early-sound-era films. Since completing his first film in 1985, Maddin has become one of Canada's most well-known and celebrated film-makers.

Maddin has directed eleven feature films and numerous short films, in addition to publishing three books and creating a host of installation art projects. A number of Maddin's recent films began as or developed from installation art projects, and his books also relate to his film work. Maddin has been the subject of much critical praise and academic attention, including two books of interviews with Maddin and two book-length academic studies of his work. Maddin was appointed to the Order of Canada, the country's highest civilian honour, in 2012.

Maddin is Visiting Lecturer on Visual and Environmental Studies, 2015–16, at Harvard University.

Guy Maddin was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, on February 28, 1956, to Herdis Maddin (a hairdresser) and Charles "Chas" Maddin (grain clerk and general manager of the Maroons, a Winnipeg hockey team). Maddin has three older siblings: Ross (b. 1944), Cameron (1946–63), and Janet (b. 1949). Maddin attended Greenway Elementary until the sixth grade, then General Wolfe school grades seven through nine, then Daniel McIntyire Collegiate Institute grades ten through twelve. Maddin's early life was marked by tragedy, with the death of his brother Cameron in 1963, and the death of his father in 1977. Maddin studied economics at the University of Winnipeg, graduating in 1977 without a plan to become a film-maker. That same year, Maddin married Martha Jane Waugh: Maddin's daughter Jilian was born in 1978, and Maddin and Waugh divorced in 1979.

After graduating, Maddin held a variety of odd jobs, including bank manager, house painter, and photo archivist. Maddin began to take film classes at the University of Manitoba. Maddin met the film professor Stephen Snyder in this manner. As a professor, Stephen Snyder had access to the university's film library, and would hold regular film screenings at his home, which Maddin attended along with his friend John Boles Harvie, who would go on to star in Maddin's first film, and other early collaborators, as well as the film-maker John Paizs. Maddin appeared as an actor in two of Paizs' short films, as a student in Oak, Ivy, and Other Dead Elms (1982) and as a transvestite, homicidal nurse in The International Style (1983). Maddin drew early inspiration from the films of John Paizs, as well as experimental shorts by Stephen Snyder. Other early influences included L'Age d'or by Luis Buñuel (in collaboration with Salvador Dalí) and Eraserhead by David Lynch: Maddin has stated in numerous interviews that these films, along with the work of Paizs and Snyder, "were movies that were primitive in many respects. They were low budget, they used nonactors or nonstars, they used atmospheres and ideas, and were unbelievably honest, frank, and, therefore, exciting to me. They made moviemaking seem possible to me." Maddin also met the film professor George Toles, who became Maddin's frequent cowriter on many of his future films. Maddin's core group of friends from this period, who played various roles in the production of his early film projects, were known as "the Drones" and included John Harvie, Ian Handford, and Kyle McCulloch (now a writer for South Park).