Skin Flick
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.
Bruce LaBruce in attendance
A gang of London neo-Nazi skinhead thugs spend their time chasing various criminal pursuits. Though violently homophobic, they have no qualms banging each other. Their hypocrisy hits a peak when they break into the apartment of a mixed-race, middle-class gay couple, intent on terrorizing and raping them. Nodding to Clockwork Orange and Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom while borrowing the conventions of gay porn, LaBruce explores fascism and certain gay fantasies, in particular the fetishization of skinhead culture.
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).