90 minutes – Comedy, Historical, Biography
Language: English
Festival release date: September 2019 (Toronto International Film Festival)
Release date: Dec.13, 2019 (Toronto)
Production company: Voyelles Films
Canadian distributor: Maison 4:3

Set in Toronto in 1899, The Twentieth Century is a comedic take on the life of real life aspiring politician Mackenzie King. He hesitates in love between a heroic soldier he believes himself destined to marry and a psoriasis-addled spinster and learns that with unrequited love, it’s never over until you’ve completely humiliated yourself.

People familiar with the work of Guy Maddin will see his influence on director Matthew Rankin’s first feature-length film, which screened in TIFF’s Midnight Madness program. Writing about the film for the Toronto International Film Festival, Peter Kuplowsky concluded with: “Rankin and company…have brilliantly conjured a Heritage Minute from hell: a perverse, phantasmagoric parody of Canadian national identity, and the figures that inspired it.

Also see: Inside Québec: Fall 2019.