In the latest instalment of the zombie film saga that refuses to die, Victoria Police this morning raided the home of Richard Wolstencroft, the director of the Melbourne Underground Film Festival (MUFF), seeking a copy of the prohibited film LA Zombie.

The gay-porn-horror movie, by Canadian underground filmmaker Bruce LaBruce, was screened by Wolstencroft before about 200 people on August 29 despite effectively being forbidden from public exhibition in this country.

In July, the Classification Board refused to grant an exemption from classification to the film, which was originally slated to appear in the Melbourne International Film Festival that month.

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A character for the movie L.A. Zombie.
However, on August 11, Wolstencroft announced his intention to stage a “public disobedience freedom of speech event” — an illegal screening of the film — on August 29.

“If the police turn up and physically stop me, what can I do?,” Wolstencroft said before the screening. “But they really hate coming to this sort of thing, they’re embarrassed.”

The screening went ahead as planned at CBD venue £1000 Bend. Police did not attend on the night.

This morning, however, three detectives from the Melbourne Criminal Investigation Unit did attend, arriving on Wolstencroft’s doorstep with a warrant to enter his premises and search for any copies of the film.

It is believed the detectives considered removing every DVD in Wolstencroft’s house, as well as computers containing two movies on which he is working. They were eventually dissuaded by his insistence that he had destroyed his only copy of the film, on DVD, after the August screening. Wolstencroft also admitted to police that the August 29 screening had gone ahead and that he was solely responsible for it.

A Victoria Police spokeswoman said Wolstencroft would face court at a later date.

Despite having frequently taken a defiantly anti-censorship position in the past, Wolstencroft appeared to be quite shaken by this morning’s events.

“I’ve never been charged with so much as jay-walking,” he told Fairfax.

“I find the situation that a little festival is being pursued in this way quite distressing and depressing.”