Catching up with LaBruce by MATTHEW HAYS Interviewing Canuck indie filmmaker Bruce LaBruce is always a pleasure. He's raunchy, ludicrously irreverent and pulls no punches (or slaps). I've been a fan ever since he made No Skin Off My Ass, his ultra-low-budget black-and-white 1990 feature about an unlikely romance between a skinhead and a gay hairdresser. His last film, Hustler White (1996), really put the auteur on the international map. LaBruce has secured a loyal cult following in countries like Japan, Great Britain and France, endearing fans with an acerbic wit and his audacious style, often compared to that of John Waters. But despite the fascination with hustlers and sex, LaBruce has never made an out-and-outright porn feature--that is, until now. LaBruce has just returned from London where he shot a porn from his own script for the Berlin-based Kazzo Films. And as per usual with LaBruce, the scenario he sets up will undoubtedly push audience buttons. "I came up with this script about neo-Nazi skinheads. It's quite extreme in its implications, sort of Clockwork Orangeish. The skins break into the house of a bourgeois mixed-race gay couple, one black, one white. They sexually terrorize them. They rape the black character. And then they [the mixed-race couple] get revenge on them." The film, which will be released sometime next year, will be distributed in two versions, both hard- and softcore. LaBruce reports he did have a bit of a crisis of conscience while making the film--not because of the film's racial dynamic, but rather due to the fascist tone of the porn industry itself. "The very nature of it [porn in general] is so slick and so single-minded. There's no multiplicity of meaning, it's just all pumped out." But the geographical shift was something LaBruce welcomed: "Because the company is Berlin based, they have a very different attitude towards sex. There isn't that guilt around it the way there is in North America." In a related item, some of LaBruce's short stories are being adapted into a film by Toronto playwright and director John Palmer. He will be in Montreal to audition actors for a role in the film, currently titled Sugar. The actor (who doesn't have to be professionally trained) should be 17 or 18 years old. The role he will be playing is that of a sexy hustler. "There is some nudity and sex," says Palmer, "but it is a legitimate film." Palmer will be teaching at the National Theatre School during the first week of January. Resumés of those who would like to audition should be sent to: Palmer c/o NTS, 5030 St-Denis, Montreal, H2J 2L8. (No phone calls please). Good luck to our budding young thespian community! In an entirely unrelated vein, this Friday (December 18) Imax Les Ailes (in Brossard) will premiere T-REX: Back to the Cretaceous, a special effects big-screen epic, shot right here in Canada. It all sounds like a bit of a Jurassic Park ripoff, but the creators insist it's not really about the dinosaurs ripping anyone to shreds (uh... where's the fun in it then?) but rather about using computer effects to illustrate what dinosaurs actually would have looked like. Info: (450) 672-4629. COMMENTS: matt_hays@babylon.montreal.qc.ca