Zombie Dir.Bruce LaBruce Produced by Arno Rok, Bruce LaBruce, Dark Alley, PPV networks, Wurstfilm Extended Movie Clip Edited by L.E. Zombie // Official Extended Movie Trailer (2010) on Vimeo. 10/10: Bruce LaBruce The director of L.A. Zombie and the upcoming The Misandrists discusses his ten favorite films from the last ten years. -in chronological order.
Bruce LaBruce Does Women: Softcore Radical Lesbian Terrorism from the Queercore Icon. (2013), many deliberately feature no women, as in “Hustler White” (1996) and “L.A. Zombie” (2010.
Recently, we reviewed The Misandrists, the latest film by director and queercore icon Bruce LaBruce. That film tells the story of the Female Liberation Army’s attempt to remake the world in their own image by using revolutionary pornography. The film is gorgeous, confrontational and quite explicit. In advance of The Misandrists‘ premiere, we had the opportunity to talk with the filmmaker in our exclusive Bruce LaBruce interview.
Danko Jones 'Legs' Video directed by Bruce LaBruce 6,587 views 5 years ago A music video I directed for Toronto band Danko Jones' song 'Legs'. The latest Tweets from Bruce LaBruce (@BruceLaBruce). Bruce LaBruce is a filmmaker, writer, photographer and artist living in Toronto. @Honors_Zombie celebrates Robert Altman's QUINTET in his latest video essay about maligned masterpieces https. @SagatFrancois in L.A. Zombie is a 2010 zombie horror film written and directed by Bruce LaBruce. It premiered in competition at Locarno International Film Festival in Switzerland in 2010. The film exists in two versions, a 63-minute cut version showcased at various festivals and theatres and a 103-minute directors cut DVD release containing hardcore gay pornography not seen in the cut version. Bruce LaBruce Director; Screenwriter; Actor “I believe virtually all horror movies are about homosexual panic. Speaking of Freud and Freddy, what is that fear about if not castration?”. Zombie Bruce LaBruce, 2010 + 11. Show all (21) Screenwriter. Valentin, Pierre & Catalina Bruce LaBruce.
In the past, you’ve seen your art picketed and censored; have you seen any pushback with The Misandrists?
I’m still waiting! There has been some somewhat less-than-subtle instances of prior censorship based on political correctness. The Misandrists was rejected by a number of the biggest LGBTQ film festivals, including Inside/Out in Toronto, Frameline in San Francisco, and Outfest in Los Angeles.
I have a history with all these festivals, and I’ve heard on the grapevine that the film wasn’t programmed either because they said they couldn’t show a lesbian film made by a gay man, or because they think it’s “transphobic.” Both excuses are patently ridiculous.
The Misandrists has played at dozens of international non-queer festivals, including Berlin, Helsinki, Kolkata, Istanbul, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Karlovy Vary and Calgary. It’s even played in Moscow! It has also played at more adventurous queer festivals like SQIFF in Glasgow, in Sicily and Torino and Sao Paulo, etc. I’m proud to say it played at Some Prefer Cake, the Bologna Lesbian Film Festival.
I get some tough questions in Q&As, often from women challenging the film. For example, when I showed it in Glasgow, after several women took me to task for the film, I had a very civilized dinner with about a dozen lesbians. That’s how it’s supposed to work. You show the work, talk about it, get angry about it if that’s how you feel, but then break bread and move on.
No U.S. festival would touch the film, but now my U.S. distributor, Cartilage, has booked it for runs in 25 U.S. cities. So we’ll see how that goes!
By the way, I live in Toronto, where it was turned down by the trifecta of festivals — the Toronto International Festival, The Inside/Out International LGBTQ Festival and the Toronto International Porn Festival, all, presumably, for reasons of political correctness. Not too shabby!
It still hasn’t played in Toronto, a city that really needs to remove the stick from its bony ass.
What would the world in which the FLA succeeded look like?
The FLA world might look something like the polar opposite of The Handmaid’s Tale, but even more extreme because women would have somehow figured out how to reproduce asexually, so men would be taken out of the equation altogether. It would be an all-female world! It would be taking lesbian separatism to the ultimate extreme!
I guess the male children born would be reassigned to female shortly after birth (unless, of course, women evolved to the point of only giving birth to female babies). But of course, some traitorous women would allow some boys to stay boys, and hide them away. The males would live in the sewers and organize a resistance. Wow, I think I just wrote the sequel!
But if the FLA toned down their rhetoric a little bit once they got into power, maybe it would just be a socialist, egalitarian world in which women are paid equally to men for the same work, provided with healthcare and daycare so they could participate equally in the work force, and have control over their own reproductive bodies.
But men would probably still have to be ritually castrated. LOL.
You’ve made a number of films with cinematographer James Carman — how closely do you collaborate on your films’ visuals?
James Carman has shot my films Hustler White, Skin Flick, The Raspberry Reich, Otto, L.A. Zombie and The Misandrists, which spans 22 years! He’s really a great cinematographer, and he’s particularly good with lighting. He’s perfect for guerrilla-style filming because he’s totally unflappable and calm under pressure and very adventurous.
Together we went through the transition from film to digital. (Hustler White was shot on 16mm color film and Otto was half shot on 16mm.) My films are low-budget, or sometimes no-budget, so he’s perfect for me because he knows how to make something out of nothing, like I do.
With Hustler White, it was totally a matter of trust because we didn’t have video assist or dailies! We developed and looked at the film from the first day of shooting, but then I didn’t see the rest of the footage until about six weeks after the end of shooting because we didn’t have the money to develop the film!
Each of my films has a wildly different look, so I send him all kinds of reference photographs and films to show him what kind of look I’m going for. During shooting we’re very collaborative, and he makes suggestions all the time, shows me different lens options and lighting options. He’s really a dream, and also a real gentleman and very soulful.
Your 2004 film, The Raspberry Reich imagined a group of queer terrorists who opposed fascistic oppression by the state — you said it illustrated “innate radical potential of homosexual expression.” Apart from your own work, do you see any contemporary queer art from your peers as still having this potential to undermine everyday fascism, or do you think most contemporary queer art is most inert and unconcerned with larger queer and social liberation? Why?
Bruce Labruce L.a. Zombie
My philosophy of homosexuality has always been about exploring and exploiting its radical potential. Running against the grain of society, challenging the status quo with regard to sexual norms and conventions, and questioning the orthodoxy of not only the dominant social order, but also of the gay mainstream, is a very intoxicating and strategic position to be in. Authority should always be questioned.
As an artist, it’s just as important to provoke or even attempt to tear down the art establishment and the conventions of art. I do that partly by working more in a porn idiom, making art that is often too pornographic for the art world and too “arty” for the porn world. (It’s also necessary to challenge the conventions and orthodoxy of the porn world!)
The world is a big place, and the gay movement is at a different stage of development everywhere. I travel a lot and see the struggles of nascent liberation movements, and I meet lots of artists and activists who are doing amazing work.
In my own circle, there are lots of great artists making work that is queer and political, addressing issues of class, race, and gender. In The Misandrists alone, for example, there’s Susanne Oberbeck from No Bra, who wrote the Love Theme “Down with the Patriarchy” for the movie. Her work is very provocative in terms of gender and feminism.
Then there are artists who appear in the movie like Viva Ruiz and Kembra Pfahler, both of whom I’ve known since the eighties and who have been doing brilliantly subversive, political work non-stop since then. Serenity Bliss Resting, Sam Dye, Lina Bembe, and Lo-Fi Cherry, four of the girls in the film, are all filmmakers and artists themselves who are making new styles of subversive art and/or porn.
We all challenge not only neo-Fascism on the right, but also the neo-Stalinism of the left, including any attempts at censure or enforcing political correctness or attempting to police language and desire.
Is there anything else you’d like to add?
Wake up and smell the estrogen!
Watch the trailer for Bruce LaBruce’s The Misandrists
The Misandrists opens in New York City on May 25 at the Village East Cinema, then expands to Los Angeles on June 1 at the Nuart. Bruce LaBruce will introduce screenings at both locations. From there, it opens throughout the country during Pride month.
Featured image by Camographer
Watch Movies Online: New Releases
The FlufferJohnny Rebel is a charismatic heterosexual man who makes his living acting in gay porn. His live in girlfriend Babylon is a stripper so she understands the reality of working in the sex industry. Sean McGinnis doesnt. He is a 22-year-old kid who comes to Los Angeles to get into movies and gets sidetracked when he sees a Johnny Rebel video and becomes instantly obsessed. Sean becomes further drawn …
Die, Mommie, Die!
L A Zombie Movie
Retired singing star, Angela Arden, heads a dysfunctional family. Her husband, filmmaker Sol Sussman, hates her and has a kissy relationship with his nubile daughter, Edith. Angela carries on an affair with Tony Parker, a lounge lizard, who sleeps with both Edith and her brother, Lance, but not before Angela plots to murder Sol when he cuts off her allowance. Bootsie Carp, the family maid loyal to…
Look
Americans are captured on surveillance cameras at least 170 times a day mostly without their knowledge. This produces millions of hours of footage revealing the nature of those hidden secrets.
L A Zombie
Ritual
A long time ago Tom loved Lovely. They were married and everything was perfect, at least for a little while. But that was then and this is now. Lovely has just killed a man in cold blood after he tried to drug and kidnap her in a motel. She calls Tom to help but now they’ve found a VHS tape that depicts a satanic ritual in which a woman is murdered. Lovely desperately wants to leave and they do, b…
Lucky Bastard
Lucky Bastard is a “found footage” thriller about a porn website run by Mike (Don McManus) that invites fans to have sex with porn stars. Jay Paulson plays Dave, an eager young fan given a chance to have sex with the fabulous Ashley Saint (Betsy Rue). But everyone gets more than they bargained for in the seemingly mild-mannered Dave… with gruesome results. The film is captured by the “Lucky Bast…