Dave Barber

Bunky Blum is picked on in school. His only peace comes during lunch hour, when he and his mentally ill Mother eat McDonalds and visit a talking train named Train. The 83 year-old train is now a caged monument in the center of a children's park. However, Bunky believes that the train will break out of its confines and save him from the bullies of the schoolyard. When Bunky realizes that the train is not magical, all hope is lost and Bunky has a moral melt down. In a fit of rage, Bunky punches a girl in a wheelchair. The unsympathetic move lands Bunky on the losing end of a full out brawl. Bunky's Mother witnesses the schoolyard violence and she erupts into her own fit of rage, which ultimately sends her back to the psych ward. In the end, Bunky is left without hope, without family and without security. He returns to the old train to make a final plea for vengeance. But Bunky's giant steal savior has not come for vengeance. Rather, it offers Bunky what he needs, a shush of peace.

On the 25th anniversary of his employment, Dave Barber, the visionary workaholic programmer of Winnipeg's beloved Cinematheque, dies tragically in an avalanche of VHS tapes while working late to finish the programming calendar. His workaholic ghost returns to the land of the living to finish the calendar and haunt the Cinematheque by night.

A tenuously connected group of nobodies trudge through their dreary Winnipeg existence. A sickly man in an unhappy marriage, a stand-up comedian whose sets are received with indifference, a stoner couple who share only trivial exchanges, and a young loner are each living lives lost in translation, detached from their surroundings and the people around them.

Winnipeg Film Group. Deep in the winter of 1986. Guy Maddin is in the process of filming Tales from the Gimli Hospital and needs to rub a dead seagull on somebody's chest. Immediately, Dave Barber agrees, submitting his bare flesh to Maddin's road kill and to film history. (This film was commissioned by the Winnipeg Film Group's Cinematheque for its 25th anniversary, Silverscope)

In April of 2013 long time Winnipeg Cinematheque programmer Dave Barber was invited to receive the Queen's Diamond Jubilee medal. It was a remarkable occasion. The awards ceremony was in a packed hall at the Legislative Building. Everything was going fine until...