Double Program : Ulrike's Brain & Pierrot Lunaire
The work of Canadian Bruce LaBruce has been acclaimed in the US and France, and have been shown at prestigious festivals, but the filmmaker remains relatively unknown in the Land of the Maple Leaf. This retrospective, the largest ever organized in Canada, will allow us to measure the audacity and exuberance of LaBruce's work while depicting all the variations of sexuality on screen, from gay eroticism to transgression. Here is a subversive, pleasurable and combative queer cinema which will leave no one indifferent.
Pour découvrir l'immense talent de l'actrice Susanne Sachße, une habituée du cinéma de Bruce LaBruce.
Drawing on 1960s B-movie science fiction, LaBruce depicts the trials and tribulations of Dr. Julia Feifer, who shows up at a university conference with the brain of Ulrike Meinhof, the far-left Red Army Faction activist who died in 1976, in a box. The scientist is able to communicate telepathically with the brain of Ulrike Meinhof, who encourages her to lead a feminist revolution.
A girl who habitually dresses as a boy falls in love with and seduces a girl who has no idea her lover is of the same sex. She introduces her “boyfriend” to her skeptical father, who exposes the ruse. This astonishing film, adapted from the Arnold Schönberg piece, is definitely one of LaBruce’s more personal and oddball efforts. The dazzling Susanne Sachße stands out in the starring role.
Bruce LaBruce
Born in 1964 in Tiverton, Ontario, Bruce LaBruce studied film theory and social and political thought at York University in Toronto in the 1980s. He wrote film reviews for CineAction magazine, contributed to underground gay magazines, and shot his first super-8 films in the late 1980s. His first two feature films, No Skin Off My Ass and Super 8 ½, introduced him to specialized film festivals. Following Hustler White, Bruce LaBruce made a series of feature films known for their explicit gay sexuality, a taste for transgression and pastiche, and an abrasive sense of humor. His association with German producer Jüngen Brüning led him to direct some of his films in Germany. He has also made adult films, notably for the Erika Lust and CockyBoys studios. He shot two feature films in Quebec: Gerontophilia (2013) and Saint-Narcisse (2020), produced by 1976 productions. Bruce LaBruce also practices photography and writing, signing, for example, the collection of texts Porn Diaries (2020).