Maldoror is the main character in Le Comte de Lautréaumont's "Les Chants de Maldoror". He is a vampire like creature who hates humanity. He display's his hate through obscenity, blasphemy, sadomasochism, torture, murder, bestiality, etc. His hate is deep down a hate against God, and he never repents any of his actions and behaviour. His main purpose is to destroy life, and he only has one true love, a female shark, which he makes love to after she has gorged herself on sailors lost in a storm.

But wait there's more.

Maldoror is also the title of a film created with the book as inspiration. The people behind the idea are Duncan Reekie of London's Exploding Cinema Collective and Karsten Weber of Germany's Filmgruppe Chaos. In 1998 they got together and decided to make a film based on the infamous book. What differentiates it from most other films is that they took fifteen chapters from the book and sent it to fifteen underground film makers in England and Germany, asking them to make a film based on the chapter. The only prerequisite was to use super 8 format, otherwise each film maker was free to make their own choices.

As is usual in the underground film world there was no, and I mean no budget for the production. During the next two years a lot of people were involved with creating film inspired by the fifteen chapters from the book. During this time three decided to drop out, but the other twelve could finally submit their edited results.

These twelve pieces of celluloid were then enlarged to 16mm and assembled into a feature length film and a narrator's voice was added. The film had its premiere in Germany in April 2000. The press were enthusiastic.

At the moment Maldoror is only screened at underground film festivals, but they are planning a video release "as soon as we have the money". For more information about the film, screenings, etc., go to http://bak.spc.org/maldoror/.

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