Destroy All Movies
and the Anti-Aesthetic

Sometimes I hate cinema. Really, it can become tiresome. I have come to this conclusion
after running an independent film festival for twelve years and watching films since
I was very young. My life is and has been constantly filled with movies: movie theatres,
DVDs, BluRays, downloads, TV and cable. One masterpiece after another, one rare
cult gem unearthed after another, one so-so movie I really should see as I like the director
or the actor or whatever. Then there are my MUFF responsibilities: filmmakers,
some desperate, sending me their low-budget gems. Trawling through all this work.
The arguments over rejecting films, and even accepting others! After a while it can get to you.

Which is why I have decided, as a reaction to all this, on the theme for MUFF 12:
“Destroy All Movies!”

To quote Twin Peaks’ Killer Bob: “You may think I’ve gone insane…” or Norman Bates’s
“Oh, no, no. We all go a little mad sometimes.” And perhaps I have, too, programming
A Serbian Film on the opening night of MUFF 12. But I think there has to be some
resistance to this continuous onslaught of cinema we are perpetually being barraged with.
This thematisation can be taken in a number of ways. I got the idea from a book of the same
name on punk cinema. But I hate punk as a lame and nihilistic social movement and
I wanted to take the slogan deeper. Right into its ontological depths.

“Destroy All Movies” can be taken as a query, a question and even a complaint about
cinema itself. Most of us love movies. I still do, of course. I am obsessed by them as ever.
Making, watching and showing them. But how often do we question our passion in this
kind of ontological sense?

Can a film be inherently evil? Bad on a level not pertaining to its quality but to its essence?
These questions are raised by our “Tribute to Serbian Extreme Cinema” on Opening and Closing
Night. A Serbian Film and Life and Death of a Porno Gang really push the limit of what is acceptable
and permissible in modern day cinema. When I first saw A Serbian Film, distributed by the
good people at Accent, I was shocked. It was just after the LA Zombie raid and I was very skittish
about going down that path again. Halfway though A Serbian Film, I found myself thinking:
“Can I really defend this film as an artwork?” I watched the rest. I still didn’t know the answer.
And that is why I have decided to play it—after the censors passed it with a few cuts. It made me
uncomfortable and so it will you. We all have the right to see and debate this film. The same is true
of Life and Death of a Porno Gang, a film some say is even more nihilistic than A Serbian Film.
Be sure to see Saló, too, which we are screening, and to attend our forum on the censorship
of these films and others like them.

“Destroy All Movies” can also be taken as a call to the anti-aesthetic examined in our tribute to
Joe Dallesandro and Paul Morrissey. The trilogy of Flesh, Trash and Heat stand out in my mind
as great examples of subversive anti-filmmaking. They use their low-budget aesthetic to their
advantage and shamelessly exploit sex, drugs and even some violence. But for the right-wing
Catholic Paul Morrissey, violence is more in the filmmaking itself. The glaring edits, the static
shots while people talk off camera, the sound glitches and errors. All this combines to create
a great antidote to the polished and often boring as hell product that is modern cinema.
You can learn a lot from these three films and Warhol’s subversive Lonesome Cowboys.
As always at MUFF, we are here to instruct.

“Destroy All Movies”, as we have already suggested, also raises the eerie specter of the censor,
who actually has in the past destroyed movies. Obviously MUFF stands at the libertarian end
of this argument and decides it’s up to the individual to choose what entertainment it cares to
watch, enjoy or even “destroy”.

Here, I like Heidegger’s meaning of the word “destroy”. In Being and Time, Heidegger said that
to move beyond metaphysics we would first have had to “destroy” the history of metaphysics itself, in a
kind of Nietzschean reevaluation of all metaphysical values. Derrida took the word “destroy” to mean
deconstruction, but I like the more ominous “destroy” in Heidegger’s original German…

So, enough philosophising from me: we have the usual smorgasbord of great indie feature films and
shorts and the catalogue speaks for itself. MUFF is now smaller, with a little over twenty four sessions,
but we have found that this size better suits our needs and goals. We have a great venue in Memo
and a great principal sponsor in Canon. We also have Bloodfest Fantastique now in existence
—our horror and sci-fi sister festival—so in some ways MUFF is actually bigger and more vital than ever.

Yes, we like to be provocative. Yes, we like stirring up controversy and debate. I rather thought that’s
what a film festival and its director is supposed to do? When you look at some larger festivals tepid
dull as dishwater programming in the past and the fact the Australian Film Industry Box Office is still
in the doldrums and a crisis still unfolding. Now, more than ever, MUFF finds itself extremely relevant
and still thumbing its nose and middle digit at the establishment, and supplying Melbourne with
some exciting and transgressive screen alternatives and visions for the future.

Dig the festival, glom the catalogue, enjoy the controversy. Remember: no one has a right not to
be offended. Discuss our theme and maybe even actualise it: “Destroy all Movies”. And remember:
no matter how much we try, cinema keeps pulling us back, again and again, to sit in a dark room and
have it assault us one more time.

Best Regards,

Richard Wolstencroft

MUFF Festival Director