Seances presents a new way of experiencing film narrative, framed through the lens of loss. In a technical feat of data-driven cinematic storytelling, films are dynamically assembled in never-to-be-repeated configurations. Each exists only in the moment, with no pausing, scrubbing or sharing permitted, offering the audience one chance to see this film before it disappears. The project was born from the mind of one of the world’s foremost outré directors, Guy Maddin, who has long been haunted by the idea that 80% of films from the silent era are lost. Driven by the desire to reincarnate this vanished history, an abundance of these films have been reimagined by Maddin and brothers Evan and Galen Johnson, with the express goal of combining and recombining them to create infinite narrative permutations.

2000 film by Guy Maddin

The geographical dead center of North America and the beloved birthplace of Guy Maddin, Winnipeg, is the frosty and mysterious star of Maddin’s film. Fact, fantasy and memory are woven seamlessly together in this work, conjuring a city as delightful as it is fearsome.

In Depression-era Winnipeg, a legless beer baroness hosts a contest for the saddest music in the world, offering a grand prize of $25,000.

After returning home to his long-estranged mother upon a request from her deathbed, a man raised by his parents in an orphanage has to confront the childhood memories that have long haunted him.