Fined for film screening
Melbourne Underground Film Festival director Richard Wolstencroft has been instructed to pay $750 to the Royal Children’s Hospital for showing Bruce LaBruce’s film LA Zombie to an audience last year.
At a hearing at Melbourne Magistrate’s Court last week, Wolstencroft was ordered to pay the amount for screening the film which was refused classification by the Office of Film and Literature Classification.
The film depicts a gay zombie who roams the streets of Los Angeles in search of dead bodies which he brings back to life through gay sex.
Wolstencroft escaped a serious penalty — two years in jail or a fine of more than $20,000 — and was granted a diversion order so no criminal conviction will be recorded against his name.
A film-night fundraiser — showing Bruce LaBruce tribute film The Advocate of Fagdom — was held at Red Bennies in South Yarra on Sunday night to raise money for the donation Wolstencroft must pay.
Wolstencroft told the Star Observer he had received support from LaBruce during the court case.
“He’s been there offering me support the whole time,” Wolstencroft said. “It’s one of the first times a film festival director’s been charged like this.”
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The Magistrate wisely decided the fine should go to a local hospital.
Ugh – gay or straight, the depiction of graphic sex and extreme violence is not a right I am fighting for.
The ancient Essenes also had their SEX POLICE, and their pervy legacy still goes on to this very day. Now take the Life Savers on the Gold Coast for example. They drive up and down the beaches at night in four wheel drives, shining a Spot light on the Sand Hills, hoping to catch a poof in a lurid liaison.
You would think that a struggling Tourist resort would lighten up a bit, and have some sexual freedoms, nude beaches etc. No, not the Coast. It has always been an ultra conservative enclave, and we often imagine if they are handing out Bibles to holiday makers on arrival at the Airport.
The Japanese came to get their rocks off like many others, but found it was a special conserve of holy families. They were bashed, robbed or arrested for so called, ‘indecent behavior’, and never returned.
The last time we visited, there was a Photo in the local conservative rag of a Councilor, with her vote catching Shift-Spanner, tightening up a large bolt over a metal covered Glory Hole.
I dun tole them Life Savers not to ask me for donations until they stop discriminating against Gay’s, and informing the Police about our hunting techniques and nocturnal wanderings.
Alas, tourism on the Gold Coast has hit a new low, can’t get a decent Ozzie meal unless it’s had it’s throat cut.
pathetic censorship!