Banned from Film Festivals

[Metropolisforever]

Films are banned from theatrical distribution all the time, but rarely does the state or government block a film from being screened at a film festival or cinema club.  However, there are some films that really make the government cringe.  Here are a few of those films.

1975 - Under pressure from Western conservatives, the Australian Office of Film and Literature Classification viewed the controversial 1974 Belgian art-house film Vase de Noces (also known as Wedding Trough, One Man and His Pig, and known to many as "The Pig f**king Movie"), and banned it from being played at the Perth International Film Festival (before this, film festivals were not held by restrictions of the censors). In a controversial move, the Board lifted the ban on appeal, and the film was allowed to be screened.  However, in 1976, the film was banned again, and it remains banned to this day.

1976 - Upset with the decision to allow Vase de Noces to be screened, the West Australian Government would again do battle with the Perth International Film Festival the next year.  The government then threatened that if the Perth Film Festival continued their plans to import Nagisa Oshima's In the Realm of the Senses (1976), then every film that was to be shown at the festival would have to go under review of the censors. Because of this impossible task, the Perth Film Festival decided not to screen Oshima's film (thought it later screened at the Melbourne and Sydney film festivals without incident).

1976 - Pier Paolo Pasolini's Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975) is rejected for a cinema certificate by the British Board of Film Classification in 1976, and a private showing of the uncut version at the Old Compton Cinema Club in London's Soho resulted in a police raid and confiscation of the movie. A heavily edited version - minus 6 minutes of footage including scenes of torture, homosexuality, and excrement eating, and including a 4 minute prologue describing the history of the town of Salò - was later prepared by UK censor James Ferman for club showings. The film was finally passed completely uncut for cinema and video in the UK in December 2000.

1995 - In a Glass Cage (1986) shattered the myth that film festivals were out of reach of the censors. In 1995, Queer Screen applied to show the film at the upcoming Mardi Gras Film Festival. The application was refused, and an appeal to the Film Board of Review was unsuccessful, with the Board making the ridiculous claim that the film "relished" child sexual abuse.  Gimme a break!

2003 - Larry Clark's highly controversial film Ken Park (2002) is banned in Australia, forcing the Melbourne International Film Festival to cancel a planned screening of the film.  Many screenings of the film have been raided by police, although the film has become a very popular download on the Internet.

2004 - Four films were due to screen on July 17th, 2004 at the Melbourne Underground Film Festival. It is rumored that the OFLC became aware of this, and contacted the organizers, who pulled the films.  The four films were The Toolbox Murders (1978), Wife to Be Sacrificed (1974), Guinea Pig: Devil's Experiment (1985), and Guinea Pig: Flower of Flesh and Blood (1985).

2008 - As of the 1st of October, the Bristol City Council has banned The Cube Microplex from screening August Underground (2001) at "Shock!toberfest".  The legality of the council's ban is debatable  The licensee of the venue contends that, as a private members cinema, they can screen uncertificated films, but the council appears to disagree with them. However, the Cube's future licence would be under threat if they went against the ban, and so they have insisted that August Underground be withdrawn from the program.

As always, feel free to expand this tiny list.

[ER]

Interesting!

[Trevor]

The South African Film and Publications Board www.fpb.gov.za banned the film Baio das Bestas (Bog of Beasts) from screening at the Durban International Film Festival in 2007 as it contained scenes "that could be deemed to be approaching child pornography".

My view: let me see the film for myself and let me decide ~ I thought we'd had enough of this censorship nonsense already.