Rankin File: Matthew Rankin

When Matthew Rankin was studying film in Montreal at the Institut national de l’image et du son in 2004, he couldn’t get the city where he was born and raised out of his mind…

“I’ve always felt that there was a singularity to Winnipeg film, so I started thinking about Guy Maddin and image degradation and self-destruction and all the themes I associate with Winnipeg. A lot of the work I’ve done has been an exploration of this idea of Winnipeg formalism, and I’m making very deliberate references to Guy and John Paiz and Noam Gonick, guys who have inspired me and who have defined what Winnipeg filmmaking is all about.”

Rankin’s investigation of the Winnipeg style has led him to make films about the demise of the Winnipeg Jets (Death by Popcorn: The Tragedy of the Winnipeg Jets, 2005, along with Walter Forsberg and Mike Maryniuk); the weirdness of the city’sTVcommercials* (Kubasa in a Glass: Fetishised Winnipeg TV Commercials* 1978-1993, 2005)… and a rollicking animated profile of livestock auctioneer, Tim Dowler (Cattle Call, 2008)…

His most recent and ambitious foray into the nonsense and sensibility of Winnipeg is Hydro-Lévesque, 2008, a 16-minute-long fantasy that brings together his double fondness for Quebec and Manitoba…

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