A Serbian Film, Censorship and Zombie Cinema
There has recently been some controversy over the upcoming Horror Society Film Festival, which the ZRC will be attending tomorrow starting at 2 pm at the lovely Portage theatre in Chicago.
Oddly enough, this controversy has nothing to do with Zombies, which might mean that we need to redouble our efforts a bit. Instead, it is over the showing of an edgy new international movie called ‘A Serbian Film‘, which is being shown shortly after midnight, after the World Premiere of ‘Slices of Life’, the new anthology piece starring longtime Zombie supporter Marv Blauvelt, amongst many other talented folks.
A Serbian Film has been dogged since the very beginning with controversy over its graphic and disturbing depiction of sexual violence. In countries with weaker free speech protections it has even had trouble being legally exhibited, famously being de facto banned at the Frightfest festival in Westminster after the local film censor board played games with granting it a certification (you may remember similar games played against a Zombie film in Australia, as highlighted here by the ZRC)
The content of this movie, which I have not yet seen, has taken on a nearly legendary status, and the film is being ascribed almost mystical powers to disturb the audience. A famous review born out of the SXSW Film Festival screening of A Serbian Film compares watching the movie to going to war, or perhaps having your ‘soul’ itself raped. At Cannes, where it was shown to potential distributors, one supposedly became so upset that they tried to leave and fainted instead, injuring themselves in a fall.
We here at The Zombie Rights Campaign can’t help but compare these experiences with a disturbing movie to the struggles Zombies experience with movies year-in and year-out. A Serbian Film may well be graphic and disgusting, perhaps crushingly bleak and morbid; but can the experience of watching it really be that much worse than the experience of a Zombie who has to endure Dawn of the Dead? Is there any chance that A Serbian Film will have the toxic and pernicious effects on society, or even a tenth the negative impact of Night of the Living Dead, the Romero-Russo epic of fearmongering against the Differently Animated?
And yet, you’ll notice that the Zombie community does not call for censorship of these films, and the ZRC does not demand their suppression by the state or anyone else. Rather, we here at The Zombie Rights Campaign see exhibitions of these movies as a chance to do our most important work and make contact with the public, educating and enlightening those who would otherwise be further indoctrinated against the Differently Animated.
Free speech is critical to our mission, and key to bettering Zombie lives. If contentious issues like Undead Equality were settled by simple majority consensus, then the Zombie haters would have already won, and your hardworking ZRC would be out of business for good. Instead, we can compete freely in the marketplace of ideas, working to change minds rather than dictate their contents.
Hence our steadfast refusal to call for censorship. Yes, the ZRC might protest your Zombie movie. We might picket outside your theatre, and hand out literature to educate your audience about the true nature of the Zombies you defame. We will not, however, try to prevent you from having your say, because your exercise of free speech helps protect our own.
For these reasons The Zombie Rights Campaign is taking the very unusual step of recommending attendance of a particular film unrelated to the Zombie Rights movement per se, and sight unseen at that. All fans of free speech and advocates for Undead Equality in the Chicago area should make a special effort to come out and see A Serbian Film at the Horror Society Film Festival tomorrow. Do it for freedom of expression, for the First Amendment, for artistic freedom, and of course, do it for the Zombies.
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