Stump the Guesser

Stump the Guesser is a Canadian short film by Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson and Galen Johnson, which was released in 2020.^[1] A silent black-and-white film based on early Soviet cinema tropes, it stars Adam Brooks as a man who works as a guesser at the fair, but whose mindreading tricks suddenly begin to fail him; simultaneously, he meets a long-lost sister he never knew he had and falls in love with her, and sets out to disprove the theory of heredity in hopes of being able to marry her.^[2]

Stump the Guesser
Film poster
Directed by	Guy Maddin Evan Johnson Galen Johnson
Written by	Guy Maddin Evan Johnson Galen Johnson
Produced by	Juliette Hagopian
Starring	Adam Brooks Brent Neale Stephanie Berrington
Cinematography	Ryan Simmons
Edited by	Evan Johnson Galen Johnson
Production company	Julijette
Release date	February 25, 2020 (2020-02-25) (Berlinale)
Running time	19 minutes
Country	Canada
Language	English

The film premiered on February 25, 2020, at the 70th Berlin International Film Festival.^[3]

The film was named to the Toronto International Film Festival's year-end Canada's Top Ten list for short films in 2020.^[4]