Andrew Leavold: Trash and Treasure

by Dov Kornits

Where did the idea come from?

This year I was between films, and looking for something to keep my brain occupied. I cooked up a scheme called Film Safari, where I take movie obsessives on guided tours of film locations, starting October 2019 in Spain and Mexico. I really wanted an excuse to tour Australia to promote my Film Safari Kickstarter campaign starting on June 27, and liked the idea of doing a compilation like I used to tour during my days running Trash Video.

There were some crackers! Mondo Bizarro on Third World genre cinema, That’s Godsploitation on Christian exploitation, From Bollyweird With Love, and a handful more – the idea was to take highlights from each film (mostly from my tape trading days on ratty tenth-generation VHS!) and edit them between two tape players into a 90 minute clipshow. I’d then screen them at our Trash film nights and on tour to Sydney and Melbourne, sometimes Woodford Folk Festival, and do a running commentary over them. I stopped around 2007 when the shop started to go under, and I attempted to transition to actual filmmaker.

Naturally, the spirit of those old-time exploitation roadshow hucksters never really leaves you, and I missed linking fans with undiscovered films.

The idea for TrashFest 2019 was to take the best moments of those compilations, road-tested over almost 20 years, add a decade’s worth of new discoveries, and make the ultimate party tape of Obscure and Insane. And this time, it’s pieced together on actual editing software, with credits and subtitles, and using much better DVD sources for the materials – trailers, excerpts from films, PSAs, music clips, and a few re-edits of my own creation. I can honestly say TrashFest 2019 is the best compilation I’ve done. I am very proud of it and cannot WAIT to share the experience!

What will the punters have in store?

It’s definitely more than just a screening – more like a frat party, or a gathering of the Weird Film Tribe. I’m imagining people dancing in the aisles to all the shit disco, and after the select few take the Oath of the Green Blood, climbing the walls onto the ceiling. There’ll also be some Trash Video shirts, Weng Weng books and bobbleheads, and instructions on how to order some of the movies included, so you can have a Film Safari in your own home.

Highlights/lowlights?

I don’t want to give TOO much away. You can tell from the poster that the Nigerian Satan is involved – a jolly-looking fellow with polystyrene horns and an X painted in Tippex on his forehead – so there is a fair-sized chunk of crazed West African DIY Godsploitation, along with some Christian amputee/puppets, and the steely glare of Baptist goremonger Estus Pirkle. One part’s called “Not Quite Manilawood”, featuring some of the most abstract trailers to come out of the Philippines; obviously the midget James Bond, Weng Weng, is represented (I did release a documentary and book about him!), but the ultra-rare clip of him line-dancing with the Filipino Village People has to be witnessed. In “Weird Asia”, there’s the North Korean Godzilla (Pulgasari), Kim Jon-Il’s failed experiment in creating a Communist-themed kaiju franchise, which is a real howler. But by far the most jaw-dropping moment is from the Pakistani action-musical International Guerrillas, where three holy warriors (at one point dressed as Batman!) destroy the evil Bond-like villain Salman Rushdie by calling four flying, laser-spitting Korans from the sky. Take that, Salman!

Local treats?

Sadly, nothing local. The problem is, Australia can’t compete in the Mondo Macabro stakes against countries like Turkey and Indonesia. And the crazy stuff we DO produce is either in Not Quite Hollywood, on DVD and Blu-ray through companies like Umbrella, Madman and Monster Pictures, or on tour in Dick Dale’s Trasharama-A-Go-Go. So, ultimately that doesn’t leave me anything of any genuine strangeness to work with. No, I’d prefer to keep digging in more unusual places like the Middle East and North Africa for undiscovered gems (I recently found an incredible-looking Libyan satanic biker film, as well as the Moroccan Exorcist!), polish them off, cut them down to palatable size, and start tilling the soil for TrashFest 2020.

So, it’s not a one-off?

I can’t imagine I’ll ever stop the comps, they’re way too much fun to piece together and take on tour. It’s more a case of finding the time to do another one between film and book projects, and Film Safaris of course. All up TrashFest took more than 150 hours to piece together, and that’s not counting the initial viewings. But when I get to see the open mouths and baffled expressions after the screenings, it will all have been worth it.

What about your own filmmaking projects, where are you at with those?

Right now, I’m mid-way through two new documentary projects. The Most Beautiful Creatures On The Skin Of The Earth is the third in my series on Marcos-era cinema in the Philippines, and is on its wild, dangerous and often fatal state-sponsored porn industry in the Seventies and Eighties. Pub is on the old St Kilda music scene told via musician/cartoonist/general reprobate Fred Negro. Both projects are mostly in the can and are just waiting on completion funds to finish the interviews and post-production. I’m heading back to the Philippines in November to film some more talking heads and I’m confident the money will be in place by then. But you can never tell with this business – it’s a turgid miasma of dreams and unfulfilled promises, and at worst a series of savage kicks in the teeth from people you trusted. SO, when I come to direct my first horror feature next year (imagine a bleak Eighties slasher throwback with 21st Century ultra-violence) I’ll be able to enact my revenge on all those who wronged me – or didn’t give me the budget I asked for, bwahahahaha!

The Trashfest 2019 tour is travelling to the following ports:

QLD: Wednesday 26th June: The Bison Bar, NAMBOUR – Tickets
Thursday 27th June: Elizabeth Picture Theatre, BRISBANE – Tickets
Thursday 11th July: First Coat Studios, TOOWOOMBA – Details
Friday 12th July: Private Event, BURLEIGH HEADS

SA: Sunday 30th June: Media Resource Centre, ADELAIDE – Details

VIC: Friday 5th July: Nova Cinema, Carlton, MELBOURNE – 

TAS: Sunday 7th July: Brisbane Hotel, HOBART – Details

NSW: Saturday 13th July: Star Court Theatre, LISMORE
Sunday 14th July: Regent Theatre, MURWILLUMBAH – Details
Monday 15th July: The Press, TAMWORTH – Details
Wednesday 17th July: The Royal Exchange, NEWCASTLE – Details
Friday 19th July: Pink Flamingo Cinema, Marrickville, SYDNEY – Details 

ACT: Saturday 20th July: Canberra Technology Park, Watson, CANBERRA – Tickets