Output details

'The Long Road Back From Hell: Reclaiming Cannibal Holocaust'

Mendik’s research for The Long Road Back From Hell: Reclaiming Cannibal Holocaust critically examined the film’s realist narrative and racial codes of representations as part of a wider British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) policy directive to review the film’s legal status within the UK. Mendik’s documentary combines academic, critical and production analysis, considering wider theoretical debates on the film’s use of documentary aesthetics as well as its socio-historical context in Italy during the 1960s and 1970s. The documentary considers how Deodato’s film reflected wider issues of female economic engagement during the 1960s ‘economic miracle’, as well as the impact of 1970s terrorism on media representations of atrocities. It also explores more current debates around regional and racial myths of the Mezziogiorno (or Southern problem). Mendik uses the case-study of Ruggero Deodoto’s controversial 1979 film Cannibal Holocaust in a wider UK campaign, which in 2011 reversed a 26-year legal ruling that had led to the film being first outlawed and then heavily cut in UK territories. Mendik’s role in the campaign included co-authoring the formal bid (along with Professor Julian Petley of Brunel University), and requesting an advice screening ahead of a possible formal review of the film’s legal status by its current UK distributor. As part of the formal review Petley and Mendik’s defence indicated the need to fully theorise the film in light of its legitimate historical and cultural contexts. The Long Road Back From Hell was distributed in the UK on the DVD release of the film in September 2011, and was also selected in 2011 for the following international film festivals: Off-Screen Film Festival, Brussels; Sitges International Film Festival, Spain; Cyprus Days Film Festival. It was also selected for the Leeds International Film Festival in 2013.

SEE DIGITAL OUTPUT.