Happy Birthday

Winnipeg Film Group. Deep in the winter of 1986. Guy Maddin is in the process of filming Tales from the Gimli Hospital and needs to rub a dead seagull on somebody's chest. Immediately, Dave Barber agrees, submitting his bare flesh to Maddin's road kill and to film history. (This film was commissioned by the Winnipeg Film Group's Cinematheque for its 25th anniversary, Silverscope)

"Three tales of sex and violence presented by TORO LOCO, a blood thirsty, perverted killer cowboy seeking and killing people that starred in some exploitation movie. He is showing his victims the movies before torturing and killing them with a cow skull. The first story deals with two inspectors hunting a cannibal serial killer called "The Tiger". The second is about a 'not-so-devoted' husband interested in having a night of perverted sex with a prostitute in a motel room. The third is a tragical love story between a poor, little man oppressed by his wife and an handsome boy with self-destruction tendencies.

This satirical anthology tells the surreal stories of a gift for Don Horacio, a trip to the beach for Bermejo, a life-changing relationship between Tina and the young immigrant Ayoub, and a new client for a company that specializes in excuses.

An assassin goes through obstacles as he attempts to escape his violent lifestyle despite the opposition of his partner, who is secretly attracted to him.

The stage emulates life and compresses it, setting free skills learned over lifetimes in brief but dazzling displays for the amusement and judgment of others. For the performers, it is the ultimate risk, and some will rise while others must fall. Nowhere is this truer than at the Seisho Music Academy, where music, dance and real weapons all come into play in the creation of the next great Star. Karen and Hikari’s destinies have been linked since a childhood promise, but their journeys here have taken very different paths. Now, after Hikari leaves, Karen must discover who she is without her opposite, while Hikari must rediscover her own course. Nor are they the only girls who must reassess and change if they want to achieve their dreams, as the dance, magic, and swordplay continue!

Desperate to escape his mind-numbing routine, uptown Manhattan office worker Paul Hackett ventures downtown for a hookup with a mystery woman.

World famous pop group the Spice Girls zip around London in their luxurious double decker tour bus having various adventures and performing for their fans.

In Luis Buñuel’s deliciously satiric masterpiece, an upper-class sextet sits down to dinner but never eats, their attempts continually thwarted by a vaudevillian mixture of events both actual and imagined.

Momo is a young orphan girl who lives in the ruins of an old Roman amphitheater and becomes friends with everybody in the neighborhood. But when a powerful international corporation starts stealing everybody’s time, nobody has any time left for her, let alone their friends or families. Momo, together with Master Hora, the custodian of time, are the only ones who can go up against the time thieves before all is lost forever.

Frank visits his friend Josef, who introduces him to his pedigree rabbits and his wife Mary. Frank is more interested in the slightly unsettling fact that Josef and Mary's garden fence is entirely made up of living people holding hands.

A hilarious collection of animated television commercials that were rejected because of their creator's failing grip on sanity.

A young bride escapes her wedding ceremony with a stranger and together they set off on an epic journey though increasingly bizarre lands. They encounter talking animals and mournful exhibitionists, converse with a discoursing rock, journey through a surrealist's psychedelic hotel, instigate a prison riot, escape from naked cannibals living in a tree and battle a wind-up midget dictator!

A series of dark and troubling events forces Bill to reckon with the meaning of his life… or lack thereof.

Isaki Lacuesta presents a social satire in which five common or garden citizens, from a country pretty much identical to our own, see their lives ripped apart by the economic crisis. With nothing more to lose, they come up with a crazy plan to save the Spanish and world economy: kidnap the chairman of the Central Bank and demand that he return everything to the way it used to be.

"Touring makes you crazy," Frank Zappa says, explaining that the idea for this film came to him while the Mothers of Invention were touring. The story, interspersed with performances by the Mothers and the Royal Symphony Orchestra, is a tale of life on the road. The band members' main concerns are the search for groupies and the desire to get paid.

Comedy short set in the 1930s in which Hilda Stolf (Sally Phillips) visits her doctor (Reece Shearsmith) complaining of a rare case of 'high foot'. But what can be done about it?

Scandinavia, 1,000 AD. For years, One Eye, a mute warrior of supernatural strength, has been held prisoner by the Norse chieftain Barde. Aided by Are, a boy slave, One Eye slays his captor and together he and Are escape, beginning a journey into the heart of darkness. On their flight, One Eye and Are board a Viking vessel, but the ship is soon engulfed by an endless fog that clears only as the crew sights an unknown land. As the new world reveals its secrets and the Vikings confront their terrible and bloody fate, One Eye discovers his true self.

In post-apocalyptic Yokohama, a hard-boiled cop and a mellowed out drifter hook up with a gang of rebels. When the gang kidnap the cop's son, the wheels are set in motion for an inevitable showdown.

Freelancer is a horror comedy that follows Jorge, a struggling freelancer cameraman, who is about to endure the most nightmarish gig he has ever gotten.

An ambitious coffee salesman has a series of improbable and ironic adventures seemingly designed to challenge his naive idealism.