Fresh on the heals of his visit to the Hypnodrome to catch our Hypnodrome Head Trips show, film director Guy Maddin is featured in today’s New York Times. His latest film, the silent Brand Upon The Brain, incorporates live musicians, singers, and actors who perform on stage as the “soundtrack.” A live screening/peformance of Brand Upon The Brain happens tonight in San Francisco at the Castro Theatre, and May 9 -15 at the Village East Cinemas in New York. From the article:

…”Brand Upon the Brain!” is set in a lighthouse that doubles as a “mom and pop orphanage” where the senior Maddins engage in the vampiric harvesting of “orphan nectar.” While a prepubescent Guy and his older sister become infatuated with a pair of androgynous sibling teenage detectives, their scientist father toils away on sinister experiments, and their fearsome mother surveys the island with a lighthouse beam, cracking down on unseemly behavior.

“I didn’t grow up in a lighthouse,” Mr. Maddin said, “but a lot of the Grand Guignol stuff actually happened: My mother was on the alert to everything. She could see into your underwear with her searchlight.”

Read the full article.

Vampiric harvesting of orphan nectar? Now that’s entertainment!