Still Max looks at mortality, love, and the art of Canada's Max Dean at VIFF Centre
Filmmaker Katherine Knight to attend screenings April 8 to 10, with the longtime Vancouver artist tuning in on opening night
Post Sponsored by VIFF
In Still Max, the longtime Vancouver-based artist shows that a battle with cancer can’t slow down his boundless imaginative energy.
Winner of the Audience Award at Hot Docs last year, Still Max is screening at the VIFF Centre from April 8 to 10, and 14, with filmmaker Katherine Knight in attendance for the first three showings.
The lovely and inspiring film focuses on Canadian artist Max Dean, exploring mortality and art, the creative expression of the joy of living, and the impermanence of things.
Dean will attend a Zoom Q&A following the April 8 screening.
Dean was born in Leeds, England in 1949 but moved to British Columbia and studied at UBC, first exhibiting at the Vancouver Art Gallery in 1973. He’s worked in photography, video, and performance art, sculpture, and installation art.
Filmmaker Katherine Knight encounters him in Toronto, defiant in the face of prostate cancer, even as his partner Martha Fleury is diagnosed with aggressive ovarian cancer and COVID-19 escalates in the background.
Taking inspiration from his disease, Dean takes a hard look at his own body, which is also, of course, our own. In another project, he resurrects obsolete animatronic Canadiana from an abandoned amusement park, playfully suggesting a very different 21st-century national iconography.
In his boundless imaginative energy, the man who most famously conceived the collapsing Robotic Chair that reassembles itself, is very much “still Max”. You can find more information on the screenings here, and check out the trailer below.
Note that VIFF will also feature Katherine Knight’s documentary Spring & Arnaud, screening from April 9. It, too, is an unforgettable look at art, love and mortality, this time focusing on influential photographer Arnaud Maggs and his relationshp with artist Spring Hurlbut. Knight will be on hand for screenings April 9 and 10. Find more information on that film here.
Post sponsored by Vancouver International Film Festival