A scene from LA Zombie Police have raided the home of a Melbourne filmmaker after he held a public screening of the banned movie LA Zombie. A police spokeswoman has told ABC News Richard Wolstencroft's house was raided on Thursday "in relation to exhibiting and possessing an unclassified film". The founder and director of the Melbourne Underground Film Festival (MUFF), is expected to face court at a later date. He held a public screening of LA Zombie, directed by Canadian Bruce LaBruce, in August. The Australian Classification Board banned the film just before it was due to be screened at the Melbourne International Film Festival in July. The film was described in the festival program as "gay zombie porn". Wolstencroft has told ABC News the raid was "absurd, ridiculous and perverse", and he wants to know why it took the police so long to act. "Why was it (the raid) delayed six weeks? Why was I not charged two days later?" he said. "Why did they (police) not come to the screening and let me know they had a problem and then we could have avoided this situation altogether. "I just think the timing of this is interesting. Two weeks before the Victorian election ... I'd like to look at the politics behind it - why this has happened at this moment." The freedom of speech advocate says during the raid three police officers threatened to take all of his DVDs, including films he is working on. "I have a personal collection of DVDs. I have the entire MUFF archive here - there must be 10,000 DVDs in my house," he said. "They threatened to take all this and obviously it would be held up for six months. It was just ridiculous." He says the banning of LA Zombie is a prime example of Australia's censors going too far. "There is no way this film should be banned. It's a major work of art," he said.
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Sunday, 14th November 2010 - 6:43pm