The Heart of the World

The Heart of the World
The Heart of the World
Directed by	Guy Maddin
Written by	Guy Maddin
Produced by	Niv Fichman; Jody Shapiro;
Starring	Leslie Bais; Caelum Vatnsdal; Shaun Balbar;
Cinematography	Guy Maddin
Edited by	Deco Dawson; Guy Maddin;
Music by	Georgy Sviridov
Release date	2000;
Running time	6 min.
Country	Canada
Language	English

The Heart of the World is a short film written and directed by Guy Maddin, produced for the 2000 Toronto International Film Festival. Maddin was one of a number of directors (including Atom Egoyan and David Cronenberg) commissioned to make four-minute short films that would screen prior to the various feature films at the 2000 festival as part of the special Preludes program.^[1]^[2] After hearing rumours that other directors were planning films with a small number of shots, Maddin decided that his film would instead contain over 100 shots per minute, and enough plot for a feature-length film. Maddin then wrote and shot The Heart of the World in the style of Russian constructivism, taking the commission at its literal face value, as a call to produce a propaganda film. Even in its expanded, 6-minute version, The Heart of the World runs at a breakneck speed, averaging roughly two shots per second, a pace intensified by the background music, Time, Forward! by Georgy Sviridov.

Plot summary[edit]

The plot of The Heart of the World concerns two brothers, Osip and Nikolai, who compete for the love of the same woman: Anna, a state scientist studying the Earth's core. Anna discovers that the heart of the world is in danger of a fatal heart attack (which would mean the end of the world), and the brothers compete amongst the public panic. Nikolai is a mortician and tries to impress Anna with assembly-line embalming, while Osip is an actor playing Christ in the Passion Play and tries to impress Anna through his suffering. Anna is instead seduced by an evil capitalist, but has a change of heart and strangles the plutocrat, then slides down into the heart of the world, where she manages to save the world from destruction by transforming into cinema itself, the world's "new and better heart — Kino!"^[3]

Cast[edit]

Leslie Bais as Anna
Caelum Vatnsdal as Osip
Shaun Balbar as Nikolai
Greg Klymkiw as Akmatov

Awards and nominations[edit]

Genie Award:

Win: Best Live Action Short Film^[4]

Aspen Shortsfest:

Win: Best Cinematography

Brussels International Festival of Fantasy Film:

Win: Special Mention – Short Film

Miami Film Festival:

Win: FIPRESCI Prize, Best Short Subject

National Society of Film Critics Awards

Win: Best Experimental Film—the same award Maddin won in 1991 for Archangel.^[2]

San Francisco International Film Festival

Win: Film & Video – Short Narrative, Golden Gate Award – Guy Maddin

References[edit]

^ Vatnsdal, Caelum. Kino Delirium: The Films of Guy Maddin. Winnipeg: Arbeiter Ring Publishing, 2000. Print. ISBN 1-894037-11-1
^ ^a ^b "Guy Maddin: Imagining 'entirely original worlds'". Canada Council for the Arts. Archived from the original on 2013-06-01. Retrieved 2012-12-12.
^ The Guy Maddin Collection. Dir. Guy Maddin. Zeitgeist Video, 2002. DVD.
^ "Inuit film Atanarjuat wins five Genie Awards". Sudbury Star, February 8, 2002.

External links[edit]

[VatnsdalCaelum-1] Vatnsdal, Caelum. Kino Delirium: The Films of Guy Maddin. Winnipeg: Arbeiter Ring Publishing, 2000. Print. ISBN 1-894037-11-1

[Canada_Council_for_the_Arts-2] "Guy Maddin: Imagining 'entirely original worlds'". Canada Council for the Arts. Archived from the original on 2013-06-01. Retrieved 2012-12-12.

[3] The Guy Maddin Collection. Dir. Guy Maddin. Zeitgeist Video, 2002. DVD.

[4] "Inuit film Atanarjuat wins five Genie Awards". Sudbury Star, February 8, 2002.

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v t e Guy Maddin
Feature films	Tales from the Gimli Hospital (1988) Archangel (1990) Careful (1992) Twilight of the Ice Nymphs (1997) Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary (2002) Cowards Bend the Knee (2003) The Saddest Music in the World (2003) Brand upon the Brain! (2006) My Winnipeg (2007) Keyhole (2011) The Forbidden Room (2015) The Green Fog (2017) Rumours (2024)
Short films	Accidence Bring Me the Head of Tim Horton The Dead Father The Heart of the World The Little White Cloud That Cried Night Mayor Odilon Redon, or The Eye Like a Strange Balloon Mounts Toward Infinity Nude Caboose Seances Sissy Boy Slap Party Stump the Guesser
Collaborators	Evan Johnson Galen Johnson Louis Negin

v t e Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television for Best Animated Short, Best Live Action Short and Best Theatrical Short
Theatrical Short (1949–1996)	Who Will Teach Your Child? (1949) North Shore (1950) After Prison, What? (1951) Opera School (1952) L'Homme aux oiseaux (1953) Farewell Oak Street (1954) High Tide in Newfoundland¹ (1955) Gold (1956) The Sceptre and the Mace (1958) Money Minters, The Quest and The Tall Country (1959) Royal River (1960) Universe (1961) Morning on the Lièvre (1962) Nahanni (1963) Anniversary (1964) Do Not Fold, Staple, Spindle or Mutilate and Ça n'est pas le temps des romans (1968) Vertige and At Home (1969) A Matter of Fat and Blake (1970) Don't Knock the Ox (1971) This Is a Photograph (1972) Goodbye Sousa (1973) Along These Lines (1975) Cooperage (1976) Spartree (1977) L'Affaire Bronswik (1978) Nails (1980) The Strongest Man in the World (1981) Zea (1982) Elvis Gratton (1983) Ted Baryluk's Grocery (1984) Charade (1985) George and Rosemary (1988) Saeed (1991) Arrowhead (1994) Les fleurs magiques (1995) The Home for Blind Women (1996)
Live Action Short (1986–present)	The Edit (1986) I Need a Man Like You to Make My Dreams Come True (1987) The Mysterious Moon Men of Canada (1989) In Search of the Last Good Man (1990) Battle of the Bulge (1992) The Fairy Who Didn't Want to Be a Fairy Anymore (1993) The Hangman's Bride (1997) When Ponds Freeze Over (1998) Moving Day (1999) Le P'tit Varius (2000) The Heart of the World (2001) I Shout Love (2002) Noël Blank (2003) Capacité 11 personnes (2004) Milo 55160 (2005) Le rouge au sol (2006) Après tout (2007) Next Floor (2008) Danse Macabre (2009) Savage (2010) Doubles with Slight Pepper (2011) Throat Song (2012) Noah (2013) Hole (2014) She Stoops to Conquer (2015) Mutants (2016) Fluffy (2017) Fauve (2018) Pick (2019) Black Bodies (2020) Girls Shouldn't Walk Alone at Night (2021) Simo (2022)
Animated Short (1968–present)	Un enfant...un pays¹ (1968) Walking (1969) To See or Not to See (1970) Evolution (1971) Dans la vie... (1972) The Family That Dwelt Apart (1973) The Owl Who Married a Goose (1975) The Street (1976) Spinnolio (1977) Afterlife (1978) Every Child (1980) The Big Snit (1986) Get a Job (1987) The Cat Came Back (1989) Juke-Bar (1990) Strings (1992) Pearl's Diner (1993) La vieille dame et les pigeons (1997) Bingo (1998) When the Day Breaks (1999) Village of Idiots (2000) The Boy Who Saw the Iceberg (2001) The Hungry Squid (2002) Falling in Love Again (2003) Ryan (2004) cNote (2005) The Danish Poet (2006) Madame Tutli-Putli (2007) Isabelle au bois dormant (2008) Runaway (2009) Lipsett Diaries (2010) Romance (2011) Paula (2012) Subconscious Password (2013) Me and My Moulton (2014) The Ballad of Immortal Joe (2015) Blind Vaysha (2016) The Tesla World Light (2017) Animal Behaviour (2018) Giant Bear (2019) Hot Flash (2020) Angakusajaujuq: The Shaman's Apprentice (2021) The Flying Sailor (2022)
¹ These two films were given honorable mentions rather than officially winning the award, but are included here as no other winner was named above them.