CANADA SUCKS
After waiting twenty years to return to Canada to try to screen movies, I was finally invited back.
In 1988, government censors shut me down in Toronto and confiscated my films in Montreal.
No one had invited me back until this week. (I was told in an e-mail by the promoter that there wouldn't be any problems.)
This time the landlord in Montreal closed down the theatre when he heard I was coming, so the film club got another venue. I was supposed to do a show on Thursday, then LLIK YOUR IDOLS would premiere on Friday.
The promoter belatedly sent me money by Paypal for the train tickets and assured me I wouldn't be bothered by the police.
After a 10 hour ride, the Canadian police entered the train, asked for my passport, examined my films and informed me I had to leave the country. I was removed from the train and driven in a cop car to a police station where they looked at my DVDs and ripped up the leader on the 16mm prints of WAR IS MENSTRUAL ENVY, WHOREGASM and SMILING FACES TELL LIES.
Who knows if they watched POLICE STATE?
The station had no water and the vending machines only took Canadian cash which I didn't have.
After an hour a cop told me they would drive me back over the border to U.S. Customs.
I was told that they were concerned by the content of WAR IS MENSTRUAL ENVY a problem film which was "borderline criminal material" and the 16mm print would have to be examined by a magistrate somewhere before I'd ever have the right to get into Canada.
(The promoter had told me it was approved by the government but like I expected, the police wouldn't let me in with my "subversive" movies since Canada is a fucking police state.) Nothing has changed in twenty years. I'm still banned in Canada.
The Canadian cops left me at US Customs, a dirty place with a big color portrait of Bush grinning like an idiot. There were no water fountains or vending machines. A cop told me there was a diner a mile away, but no sidewalk so I had to walk in the ice and mud on the highway dodging giant trucks while it snowed. A cop car pulled up and I was asked what I was doing. "Trying to get something to eat. Do you want to give me a lift?"
"We're not allowed to do that," the cop replied. He radioed back to the station to verify that I'd been sent by another cop to the diner, and wasn't a terrorist with a bag full of movies. I guess cops aren't supposed to serve and protect.
I was in an open-air prison.
The Canadian cops had told me my return train ticket would be good on a bus back to NY. They lied and it cost me $80 in cash when the bus arrived 6 1/2 hours later. Fortunately the driver took me to an ATM on the way back so he could collect his overpriced fee.
In conclusion, after twenty years of being banned in Canada, nothing has changed.
I was treated like a criminal and deported for making movies.
I hate Canada.
In 1988, government censors shut me down in Toronto and confiscated my films in Montreal.
No one had invited me back until this week. (I was told in an e-mail by the promoter that there wouldn't be any problems.)
This time the landlord in Montreal closed down the theatre when he heard I was coming, so the film club got another venue. I was supposed to do a show on Thursday, then LLIK YOUR IDOLS would premiere on Friday.
The promoter belatedly sent me money by Paypal for the train tickets and assured me I wouldn't be bothered by the police.
After a 10 hour ride, the Canadian police entered the train, asked for my passport, examined my films and informed me I had to leave the country. I was removed from the train and driven in a cop car to a police station where they looked at my DVDs and ripped up the leader on the 16mm prints of WAR IS MENSTRUAL ENVY, WHOREGASM and SMILING FACES TELL LIES.
Who knows if they watched POLICE STATE?
The station had no water and the vending machines only took Canadian cash which I didn't have.
After an hour a cop told me they would drive me back over the border to U.S. Customs.
I was told that they were concerned by the content of WAR IS MENSTRUAL ENVY a problem film which was "borderline criminal material" and the 16mm print would have to be examined by a magistrate somewhere before I'd ever have the right to get into Canada.
(The promoter had told me it was approved by the government but like I expected, the police wouldn't let me in with my "subversive" movies since Canada is a fucking police state.) Nothing has changed in twenty years. I'm still banned in Canada.
The Canadian cops left me at US Customs, a dirty place with a big color portrait of Bush grinning like an idiot. There were no water fountains or vending machines. A cop told me there was a diner a mile away, but no sidewalk so I had to walk in the ice and mud on the highway dodging giant trucks while it snowed. A cop car pulled up and I was asked what I was doing. "Trying to get something to eat. Do you want to give me a lift?"
"We're not allowed to do that," the cop replied. He radioed back to the station to verify that I'd been sent by another cop to the diner, and wasn't a terrorist with a bag full of movies. I guess cops aren't supposed to serve and protect.
I was in an open-air prison.
The Canadian cops had told me my return train ticket would be good on a bus back to NY. They lied and it cost me $80 in cash when the bus arrived 6 1/2 hours later. Fortunately the driver took me to an ATM on the way back so he could collect his overpriced fee.
In conclusion, after twenty years of being banned in Canada, nothing has changed.
I was treated like a criminal and deported for making movies.
I hate Canada.