Acclaimed Winnipeg filmmaker Guy Maddin has won the Best Experimental Short award at the 2010 SXSW Film Festival for Night Mayor. The film is a fictional documentary about Bosnian inventor Nihad Ademi who, in 1939, built a machine that harnessed the power of the Aurora Borealis to transmit images of Canadians to themselves.

Created as a tribute to the National Film Board of Canada‘s 70th anniversary, Night Mayor playfully twists concepts of fact and fiction. Maddin describes the film as a documentary, even though his subject never actually existed, since it was shot documentary style with no planned action or script. Maddin assembled his cast and crew to document Ademi’s story as it may have happened and captured the action in his uncanny style of recreating time periods.

To see the director at work and to hear him describe his process, embedded below is a making-of clip posted on the NFB’s website. If you go to the NFB’s site, you can also watch more behind-the-scenes videos with Maddin as well as several clips from the film.

But, before the video, I also want to offer a special congratulations to designer Gilles Vranckx, who was the runner-up for the Best Poster Design award for his poster for the underground film hit Amer by Helene Cattet and Bruno Forzani. You can see Vranckx’s trippy poster on his website. (Warning: NSFW!)

That’s not to snub the other winners at this year’s SXSW, who all deserve congratulations. The full list of winners is posted beneath the video:

Documentary Feature
Marwencol, dir. Jeff Malmberg

Runner-up: War Don Don, dir. Rebecca Richman Cohen

Narrative Feature
Tiny Furniture, dir. Lena Dunham

Special Jury Award -– Best Ensemble
The Myth of the American Sleepover, dir. David Robert Mitchell

Special Jury Award –- Best Individual Performance
Brian Hasenfus
Phillip the Fossil

Feature Film Audience Awards

Documentary Feature
For Once in My Life, dir. Jim Bigham & Mark Moormann

Narrative Feature
Brotherhood, dir. Will Canon

Midnighters
Tucker & Dale vs. Evil, dir. Eli Craig

Short Film Jury Awards

Narrative Shorts
Cigarette Candy, dir. Lauren Wolkstein

Runner Up: Teleglobal Dreamin’, dir. Eric Flanagan

Documentary Shorts
Quadrangle, dir. Amy Grappell

Runner Up: White Lines and The Fever: The Death of DJ Junebug, dir. Travis Senger

Animated Shorts
The Orange, dir. Nick Fox-Gieg

Runner Up: One Square Mile of Earth, dir. Jeff Drew

Experimental Shorts
Night Mayor, dir. Guy Maddin

Runner Up: Kids Might Fly, dir. Alex Taylor

Music Videos
Cinnamon Chasers, “Luv Deluxe,” dir. Saman Keshavarz

Runner Up: Grizzly Bear, “Forest,” dir. Allison Schulnik

Texas Shorts
Petting Sharks, dir. Craig Elrod

Runner Up: The Big Bends, dir. Jason William Marlow

Time Warner Cable & Ovation Young Filmmaker Scholarship for Texas High School Short
Give the Dog a Bone, dir. Edward Kelley

Runner Up: The Sleep Project, dir. Whitney Bennett & Matthew Cunningham

SXSW Film Design Awards

Excellence in Poster Design
Feeder
Designer: Joseph Ernst

Runner Up: Amer
Designer: Gilles Vranckx

Audience Award
Richard Garriott: Man on a Mission
Designer: Michael Anderson

Special Jury Award
Equestrian Sexual Response
Designers: Martim Vian & Zeke Hawkins

Excellence in Title Design
Zombieland
Designer: Ben Conrad

Runner Up: earthwork
Designer: Stan Herd

Audience Award
earthwork
Designer: Stan Herd

Special Jury Award
Enter the Void
Designer: Gaspar Noé and Tom Kam

SXSW Special Awards

SXSW Wholphin Award
Quadrangle, dir. Amy Grappell

SXSW Chicken & Egg Emergent Narrative Woman Director Award
Lena Dunham for Tiny Furniture

Special Award – The Chicken & Egg Pictures “We Believe in You” Award
Martha Stephens for Passenger Pigeons