Richard Wolstencroft
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Richard Wolstencroft (born April 23, 1969) is an Australian filmmaker and director of the
Melbourne Underground Film Festival The Melbourne Underground Film Festival (MUFF) is an Australian independent film festival featuring mostly genre, controversial, transgressive and avant garde material. History The Melbourne Underground Film Festival was formed out of disagreem ...
or MUFF. Wolstencroft also founded the Melbourne BDSM venue Hellfire Club under the pseudonym 'Richard Masters.'


Career

Wolstencroft's film career began in 1992, with the premier of his directorial debut, the vampire film ''
Bloodlust Bloodlust may refer to: * Homicidal ideation * Human hematophagy * '' Bloodlust!'', a 1961 thriller film * ''Bloodlust'', the home video title of the 1981 film '' Docteur Jekyll et les femmes'' * ''Bloodlust'' (1992 film), a 1992 Australian vampi ...
'', which he co-directed with Jon Hewitt. In the same year, Wolstencroft opened Hellfire Club, the only
BDSM BDSM is a variety of often Eroticism, erotic practices or Sexual roleplay, roleplaying involving Bondage (BDSM), bondage, Discipline (BDSM), discipline, dominance and submission, sadomasochism, and other related interpersonal dynamics. Given ...
and
kink KINK (101.9 FM also known as kink.fm) is a commercial radio station in Portland, Oregon. It is owned by Alpha Media and it airs an adult album alternative radio format. KINK's studios and offices are on Southwest 5th Avenue in the PacWest C ...
venue operating in Melbourne for the greater part of the 1990s. In 1999, Wolstencroft released his second feature film ''Pearls Before Swine'' which starred industrial musician and alleged
neo-Nazi Neo-Nazism comprises the post–World War II militant, social, and political movements that seek to revive and reinstate Nazism, Nazi ideology. Neo-Nazis employ their ideology to promote hatred and Supremacism#Racial, racial supremacy (ofte ...
Boyd Rice Boyd Blake Rice (born December 16, 1956) is an American experimental sound/noise musician using the name of NON since the mid-1970s. A pioneer of industrial music, Rice was one of the first artists to use a sampler and turntable as an instrum ...
. The rejection of that film by
Melbourne International Film Festival The Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) is an annual film festival held over three weeks in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It was founded in 1952 and is one of the oldest film festivals in the world following the founding of the Venic ...
prompted Wolstencroft to start the Melbourne Underground Film Festival as an outlet "dedicated to alternative, exploitation, genre and political cinema" in 2000. Wolstencroft directed and released three other feature-length projects, ''The Beautiful and Damned'' in 2008, ''The Second Coming'' in 2015, and ''The Second Coming: Volume 2'' in 2016. Wolstencroft continues to serve as director of the MUFF as of 2022.


Controversy & legal issues

Wolstencroft's first film-related legal issue came in 2001, when MUFF was forced to cancel a screening of ''
Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom ''Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom'' (), billed on-screen as ''Pasolini's 120 Days of Sodom'' on English-language prints and commonly referred to as simply ''Salò'' (), is a 1975 political art horror film directed and co-written by Pier Paolo P ...
'' due to being unable to obtain permission from the
Australian Classification Board The Australian Classification Board (ACB or CB) is an Australian Government of Australia, government Statute, statutory body responsible for the classification and censorship of films, television programmes, video games and publications for ex ...
to screen the film. In 2003, Wolstencroft scheduled a screening of a lecture by noted Holocaust denier
David Irving David John Cawdell Irving (born 24 March 1938) is an English author and Holocaust denier who has written on the military and political history of World War II, especially Nazi Germany. He was found to be a Holocaust denier in a British court ...
as part of the annual MUFF programming. Although Australian Jewish groups failed to secure a court injunction to prevent the screening, the recording was pulled from the MUFF schedule by Wolstencroft hours before it was slated to be shown. In 2010, Wolstencroft organized an illegal screening of the film '' L.A. Zombie''. After being brought to trial for the illegal screening, Wolstencroft was ultimately ordered by the
Melbourne Magistrates' Court The Melbourne Magistrates' Court is the largest venue at which the Magistrates' Court of Victoria sits. It is a court in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia that deals with, and dispenses of, a range of criminal and civil matters, including crimina ...
to pay $750 to the Royal Children’s Hospital, although the screening was eligible for penalties as severe as a $20,000 fine and up to two years in prison. After the screening took place, Wolstencroft's home was raided by Australian police. In 2017, Wolstencroft uploaded a post to Facebook negatively reacting to Australia's marriage equality vote, claiming that " mosexuality is created often by child abuse" and that " e Australian public really was fooled, bullied and cajoled in to 'sic''this decision ruthlessly by the Government and Media Elite." An ensuing backlash led to Wolstencroft publicly apologizing for the post and implying he would resign as director of the MUFF, only to return to the festival in his original position the following year.


Critical reception

After release, ''Bloodlust'' was reviewed in Australian film magazine
Cinema Papers ''Cinema Papers'' was an Australian bi-monthly film magazine which ran from 1974 to 2001, regarded as "the premier Australian film industry magazine". It absorbed ''Filmviews'' in 1989. History and profile ''Cinema Papers'' was first published ...
by critic Karl Quinn, who described the movie as "appalling, plot-less, badly directed, scripted and acted." Mark David Ryan, associate professor of film and screen at the Queensland University of Technology described Wolstencroft as a "key igurein 2000s horror production" and described ''Bloodlust'' as "one of the more renowned underground horrors of the decade." Critic
Adrian Martin Adrian Martin (born 1959) is an Australian film and arts critic. He now lives in Malgrat de Mar in Spain. He is Adjunct Associate Professor in Film Culture and Theory at Monash University. His work has appeared in many magazines, journals and ...
described ''Pearls Before Swine'' as "grandly pretentious" and "an incoherent, idiotic, excruciatingly bad film that revels in the kind of fascism espoused by naughty schoolboys." Wolstencroft's documentary ''The Last Days of Joe Blow'' was reviewed by SBS film critic Simon Foster, who awarded the film a three-and-a-half star rating and described the film as both " jittery, impulsive work" and "a revealing, incisive account of a man at the crossroads."


Politics

Wolstencroft supported the Sex Party in the 2010 Victorian state elections, speaking at a launch event for the party. Although describing his personal politics as "a mix of Left and Right ideas", he has expressed support for the
Alt-right The alt-right (abbreviated from alternative right) is a Far-right politics, far-right, White nationalism, white nationalist movement. A largely Internet activism, online phenomenon, the alt-right originated in the United States during the late ...
and
Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served as the 45 ...
, and has self-described as a "transcendental fascist" and an "Australian
Milo Yiannopoulos Milo Yiannopoulos (; ''né'' Hanrahan; born 18 October 1984) is a British far-right political commentator. His speeches and writings criticise Islam, feminism, and social justice. Yiannopoulos is a former editor of ''Breitbart News'', an Americ ...
". In 2010 Wolstencroft published a blog post that stated that " he
Nazis Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...
only wanted a united Europe like the EU," and that, "
Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...
would have protected the British Empire and it would exist in a greater glory to this day if he had been allowed to". These statements have been interpreted by some as expressing sympathy towards
Nazism Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During Hitler's rise to power, it was fre ...
.


Filmography

* ''
Bloodlust Bloodlust may refer to: * Homicidal ideation * Human hematophagy * '' Bloodlust!'', a 1961 thriller film * ''Bloodlust'', the home video title of the 1981 film '' Docteur Jekyll et les femmes'' * ''Bloodlust'' (1992 film), a 1992 Australian vampi ...
'' * '' The Intruder'' * ''
Pearls Before Swine A pearl is a hard, glistening object produced within the soft tissue (specifically the mantle) of a living shelled mollusk or another animal, such as fossil conulariids. Just like the shell of a mollusk, a pearl is composed of calcium carb ...
'' * ''The Beautiful and Damned'' * ''The Last Days of Joe Blow'' * ''The Second Coming'' * ''The Second Coming (Vol. 2)'' * ''The Debt Collector''


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wolstencroft, Richard 1969 births Living people Film directors from Melbourne BDSM people