Film director Lloyd Kaufman talks about Trump
- Film producer Lloyd Kaufman represents America’s sinister counterculture. Right in the picture: His most famous movie character, “Toxic Avenger”. (Imago / ITAR-TASS)
Lloyd Kaufman has been shooting and producing Trash and Spot films for 50 years. He says that under Trump, he felt like he was on one of his own flicks. His new movie also has a lot to do with the outgoing US president.
The director and producer says that during the Trump administration years, he felt like he was in his own trash movies produced by production company Troma Entertainment. Lloyd Kaufman. For over 50 years, he has directed and produced independent, low-budget films: B-Movies that cynically make their way into American society.
The movie trash and reality merge
The fact that a man like Donald Trump would eventually come to power in the United States really couldn’t surprise him: After all, many of his films already predicted what Trump was ultimately going to achieve, Kaufman says. For example in the cult classic “Toxic Avengers”, where a mutated superhero saves his city from corruption and greed. “Then there were other films where we really predicted what Trump’s world is.”
What he doesn’t understand, however, Kaufman joked about the radical Trump supporters storming the Capitol: “Why are these terrorists, these barbarians walking around in our costumes”—in the costumes of films like ‘Class of Nuke’ Em High’ or ‘The Waves Nazis Must Die’ .
Kaufman’s visions of frivolity and reality increasingly seem to merge.
‘Most politicians are just terrifying’
However, he has no regrets that he did not vote in 2016, the year of Trump’s success, Kaufman says. “Both candidates were terrible. Why should I support a candidate I don’t like?”
Also in this presidential election, he did not vote for Democratic candidate Joe Biden. “Since I don’t like Biden and I don’t like Trump, I chose the Greens, at least they’re doing something for the environment. Most of the politicians we have are just creepy. They’re terrible candidates.”
New movie about Trump and Twitter
Nobody can imagine what happened during Trump’s presidency. This is so incredible. However, the director says his new movie “#Shakespeare Sheetstorm” has a lot to do with the Trump era. It is a free quote from Shakespeare’s play “The Tempest”. “There are a lot of Trump-era problems being addressed there, for example the hate that’s spreading on Twitter.”
As Lloyd Kaufman reveals a secret: “We have a guest who appears at the end of the movie when President Trump appears.” Will his movie have a happy ending?
In any case, the director wishes for the future of American society: “Truth and love, it will be my advice, you can not fail.”
(lkn)
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