Guy Maddin and Evan Johnson’s The Forbidden Room is set to open the Forum sidebar at the Berlin Film Festival this week.

And that can’t come soon enough for Maddin, whose world premiere for his latest movie had a mass walk-out at Sundance in an out-of-competition program last week.

“I kept being told by people who wanted to make me feel better that it’s not a typical Sundance film. Which is just fine that it’s not a typical Sundance film,” Maddin told Playback Daily about his feature, which recalls the six-minute short The Heart of the World that took the Toronto International Film Festival by storm in 2000.

The Canadian auteur put the walk-out in Sundance at between 10% and 15% of the audience. Press reports put the exodus at up to half of the audience, which Maddin disputes.

“There’s too much subversion of film vocabulary going on. And a lot of people didn’t get that. I don’t know; maybe there will be an 80% walkout in Berlin,” Maddin said.

The head-scratching over The Forbidden Room comes as little surprise to the veteran director, who looked to push boundaries yet again with his latest film.

“I wanted to throw the kitchen sink at viewers with this one,” Maddin said with customary creative brio.

The Winnipeg-based filmmaker has a good track record in Berlin, where more recent movies like My Winnipeg and Brand on the Brain! also screened in the Forum program for boundary-pushing films.

“I’ve had two of the greatest nights of my filmmaking career at the Berlin Forum and it means a lot to return to that slot. In a slow organic way, I’ve built up a nice following there,” Maddin said.

And his resolve to keep his foot to the floor creatively comes in part from continuing support back home for films that continue to strike a critical chord at Sundance, Berlin and elsewhere overseas.

“In Canada, films are made possible by so much generous state support and that enables us to have a lot of artistic freedom,” Maddin said.

“I kind of like that even though the success rate isn’t 100%, filmmakers here (in Canada) – if they can make a case for themselves – can attempt to reach people as artists,” he added.