PRODUCTION HISTORY

Subconscious Cruelty began shooting in 1994, with its director only 19 years of age, and producer 22 years old, both embarking with their cast and crew on a 6 ½ year journey that saw the usual (and many unusual) secret underpinnings that come with independent, low budget filmmaking.

Filming began in February 1994 in a massive, 13,000 square-foot soundstage for 4 weeks, surprisingly large and complicated set-pieces for such a low-budget film accomplished within this environment. The crew consisted of two factions: there were many of the people who had been working with both Karim Hussain and Mitch Davis on their earlier shorts, who were mostly also filmmakers themselves. Among these people were Patrick Tremblay, Patrick Des Islets and Chris Feldman. C.J. Goldman came on to do all special make-up effects, under the supervision of Adrien Morot. The rest of the crew was comprised of a team of newly-recruited technicians from varying film backgrounds -most notably, Lighting Cameraman Francois Bourdon, Art Director / Continuity Supervisor Sonia Capogrecco, and superhuman grips / electricians Joel Boily, Christian Fuica, and Gilgamesh Fuica. Two thirds of the cast had been signed through classified ads placed in a local cultural weekly, The Montreal Mirror. Soundtrack composer Teruhiko Suzuki had already begun scoring the film in Japan, based on detailed shot lists, and rough demo recordings of the soundtrack were played on set throughout production.

At the end of this 4 week shooting period, things took on a dark edge, as film stock disapeared and the film's negative was frozen in a dispute.

This forced the unit to continue with smaller, occaisional shooting sessions over weekends that spread themselves over two years, all while a constant battle raged to re-gain the original negative elements. Alongside troopers from the February team, newly-enlisted crew member/technicians included Robert Cotterill, Julien Fonfrede, Ben Boucher, Anne Marie Belley, Scott Noonan, Alex Chisholm, Philippe Spurrell & Patricia McNeil, again, all filmmakers or photographers themselves. During this same, arduous period, Hussain and Davis were forced to make a very difficult decision: Hussain, who also edited the picture, began to hand-cut the film's only positivefilm print, in order to attract further investors, not knowing if there would ever be a negative to conform it to, or if he was causing irreparable damage to what was left of the film.

Finally, a settlement was made, and the original negative elements held hostage were released. The film was safe to be completed three years after its inception.

Armed with an 80 minute cut workprint, the filmmakers tried to attain government grants to finance the picture's completion. Understandably, no Government body felt comfortable with a film that features mainlined crucifix injections and graphic knife blowjobs coming out as an endorsed representation of the Canadian Identity. Polite rejection letters took the place of Federal or Provincial funding, and time marched on.

Then, upon returning from a business trip to the United States, Karim Hussain was stopped at the Canadian Border, and Customs Agents discovered press materials for Subconscious Cruelty, and a video tape of it's rough cut. Shocked by the aggressive images in the press kit, they proceeded to put Hussain in a holding cell while they viewed the entire film. Coming back white as ghosts, they confiscated all elements from Subconscious Cruelty carried by Hussain, declaring them "obscene". This caused a wave of censorship panic, that forced the original elements for Subconscious Cruelty to be hidden under a false name for a long period.

Finally, after the remaining completion funds were raised, the final sequences to be shot were exposed in Fall 1999, in one last weekend of shooting beneath an old Montreal cinema. Among these segments was the entire "Ovarian Eyeball" sequence that opens the picture. Ironically, after several fateful postponements, the final day of production landed on Mitch Davis' 28th birthday. Fine cutting, sound and image post-production was completed throughout the year 2000, working closely with Sound Designer David Kristian. All final Post Production work was done at Montreal's ever supportive film co-op Main Film, with much assistance from Global Vision and the Covitec film lab. The production arrived to a 35mm stereo print in September of that year; sealing to a close the thousands of stories and moments of near-insanity that made up Subconscious Cruelty's turbulent birth. In the end, the film was made entirely without government assistance.

Following its World Premiere screening at the sold-out Retiro Cinema at the October 2000 Sitges International Film Festival in Spain (attended by both Mitch and Karim who did a one hour Q+A after the show, where memorably one member of the audience fainted during the screening, and less amusingly Karim had to focus the projector HIMSELF after the one-armed projectionist insisted the blurry image was the best he could do!); and equally successful screenings at the Stockholm International Film Festival (where the shows were all packed with excellent audiences, one screening even taking place at the prestigious Swedish Film Institute!), Subconscious Cruelty is now slated to play in numerous upcoming film festivals in Europe, and around the world, with a small Canadian art-house theatrical release beginning in Spring 2001

Currently, Subconscious Cruelty will be released nationally in Japan during the year 2001 by New Select Co. Ltd.; and is closing a deal with Digital Media Expert Group (Baise Moi's Scandinavian distributor) for distribution in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Finland and the United Kingdom.

Throughout the years, the trailer for Subconscious Cruelty has been screened at various film festivals around the world, and was presented on national Canadian television through Musique Plus (MTV Québec) on one of its highest-rated shows, to much controversy. Now, the full feature is ready to unspool its cinematic intensity to the viewing public, giving them the chance to judge for themselves after all these years.