A film with brains… brains… brains…

“A young zombie named Otto appears on a remote highway. He has no idea where he came from or where he is going. After hitching a ride to Berlin and nesting in an abandoned amusement park, he begins to explore the city. Soon he is discovered by underground filmmaker Medea Yarn, who begins to make a documentary about him with the support of her girlfriend, Hella Bent, and her brother Adolf, who operates the camera. Meanwhile, Medea is trying to finish “Up with Dead People,” the epic political-porno-zombie movie that she has been working on for years. She convinces its star, Fritz Fritze, to allow the vulnerable Otto to stay in his guest bedroom. When Otto discovers that there is a wallet in his back pocket that contains information about his past, before he was dead, he begins to remember a few details, including memories of his ex-boyfriend, Rudolf. He arranges to meet him at the schoolyard where they met, with devastating results.”

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Otto; or, Up With Dead People is the latest offering from cult film director, photographer and gay icon Bruce La Bruce, recognised for queer cinema classics such as Hustler White. La Bruce is known for his approach to photography and cinema, often blurring the line between the ‘art film’ and gay pornography, offering his work a raw and unflinching quality which serves to close the gap between viewer and subject.

La Bruce’s work is not for the faint hearted at the best of times, and Otto is most certainly no exception. In a unique re-imagining of the motif, Otto brings a biting 21st century queer attitude to the Zombie Flick, and examines themes of visibility, otherness and bedroom politics in what some are calling the emergent ‘gorno’ style.

Otto; or, Up With Dead People screens Tuesday 26 February 2008 in Sydney at Dendy Newtown and 27 February at the Palace Academy Twin, Paddington, as part of the 2008 Mardi Gras Film Festival presented by Queerscreen.

Check out the trailer here, and I’ll see you there.