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Gay Documentary THIS AREA IS UNDER QUARANTINE Banned

Thunska Pansittivorakul’s Thai-made experimental documentary This Area Is Under Quarantine, which discusses the difficulties faced by both gays and Muslims in Thailand, has been banned by that country’s Ministry of Culture from showing at next month’s World Film Festival of Bangkok.
According to a report in the Bangkok Post, the problem has less to do with an outright ban of the film’s themes — which includes mention of the Tak Bai Incident of 2004, a case of police/army brutality that left nearly 100 Muslim protesters dead in the southern Thai province — than with labyrinthine new laws involving ratings committees and subcommittees that are supposed to classify films shown at special screenings or festivals.

On his [...]

FRANCESCA Controversy: Alessandra Mussolini Called “a Whore”

Monica Birladeanu in Francesca (top); Bobby Paunescu (bottom)

Romanian-born filmmaker Bobby Paunescu’s Francesca, which premiered at this year’s Venice Film Festival, may be banned from Italian screens following a legal motion by far-right lawmaker Alessandra Mussolini (right), granddaughter of dictator Benito Mussolini and niece of Sophia Loren. Reason for Mussolini’s outrage: in one scene in Francesca, she is called "a whore." (In 2007, Mussolini created a furor after stating that all Romanians living in Italy were "criminals.")
According to reports, right-wing Verona mayor Flavio Tosi has said he has also filed a criminal complaint against Francesca because in the film he is depicted in a "vulgar" manner. Tosi, who has been accused of both racism and instigating racial hatred, is [...]

THE 10 CONDITIONS OF LOVE Controversy at the Melbourne Film Festival

Protesting the planned appearance of Uighur-independence activist Rebiya Kadeer, whom the Chinese government blames for the ethnic violence this month between Uighurs and Han Chinese, a hacker has posted a Chinese flag on the Web site of the Melbourne International Film Festival, the New York Times has reported, citing the Associated Press. The ethnic riots in the East Turkistan region left nearly 200 people dead.
The hacker, reportedly a Chinese man offended by Kadeer’s scheduled appearance at the screening of Melbourne-based filmmaker Jeff Daniels‘ documentary The 10 Conditions of Love, also left messages in English demanding an apology from festival organizers. The 10 Conditions of Love, which chronicles Kadeer and her family’s struggles against the Chinese government’s oppression, premiered at [...]

Luis Buñuel’s VIRIDIANA Screening

Viridiana, Luis Buñuel’s provocative 1961 Palme d’Or-winning classic proving that life is a bitch and then you play cards, will run at New York City’s Film Forum from Friday, April 24, through Thursday, April 30.
Inspired by a painting of Saint Viridiana kneeling on the floor before a crucifix and crown of thorns (and by Benito Pérez Galdós‘ novel Halma), co-written by Buñuel and Julio Alejandro, and financed by the lead actress’ rich husband, Viridiana stars Silvia Pinal (recently honored with a Lifetime Achievement Ariel Award), as a pious young nun who, before entering a cloister, goes visit her strange and reclusive uncle (Fernando Rey). There, while trying to do Good, she befriends the [...]

Torino GLBT Film Festival 2009: Auraeus Solito’s BOY

Filipino filmmaker Auraeus Solito, best known for his 2006 Teddy Award-winning The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros, will be at the Torino GLBT Film Festival, which runs April 23-30, as a member of the international jury and to present the world premiere of his new feature, Boy, recently banned in Singapore.
In Boy, a young poet sells his comic books to afford a one-night stand with a macho rent-boy on New Year’s Eve. However, their relationship will not end that night as the boy in question will learn to accept his sexuality.
Tuli (2005) and Philippine Science (2007); the latter follows eight students at the elite [...]

Sacha Baron Cohen in BRÜNO Trailer

Written by Sacha Baron Cohen and directed by Dan Mazer, Brüno stars Cohen as a flamboyant Austrian fashionista who, in his desire to become "the biggest Austrian celebrity since Hitler," decides to launch himself in the United States, adopting an African baby (à la Madonna) in the process while trying to pass for straight.
As a result of several sex scenes, Brüno has been slapped with a NC-17 rating in the US. I don’t believe anyone was surprised. Its distributor, Universal, will now have to trim the sex bits in order to get the mockumentary an R rating. Apparently, one sequence involves anal intercourse, the sort of stuff that drives the MPAA censors wild. That and the other soon-to-be-cut [...]

OTTO; OR, UP WITH DEAD PEOPLE, THE LARAMIE PROJECT Offend

Tina O’Grady, a member of the Ohio Department of Public Safety’s "cultural competency initiative" was scolded by her boss after co-workers complained about an e-mail she had forwarded promoting the gay-themed Out@Wex Film Festival in Columbus.
As per the Columbus Dispatch, O’Grady’s co-workers seemed to be particularly offended by the festival’s description of Bruce LaBruce’s Otto; or, Up With Dead People in its release. Otto is summed up as an "art-porn provocation [that] depicts an explosion of cannibalistic, sodomy-seeking zombies in Berlin."
What exactly in that sentence — art, porn, provocation, explosion, cannibalism, sodomy, zombies, Berlin — offended some of the Ohio Department of Public Safety workers remains unclear.
The judges at the Milan International Lesbian and [...]

BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN Censored on Italian TV

Following a censored broadcast of the multiple-award winning Brokeback Mountain — minus the gay lovemaking scenes — on one of Italy’s public TV channels, Rai Due, Italian gay rights’ groups have demanded that the network’s director, Antonio Marano, explain the channel’s decision to censor the film.
Adding insult to injury, the cuts came days after the Vatican attacked an EU proposal for the UN to formally condemn anti-gay discrimination. (Now, when does the Catholic Boycott begin? Which film festivals will be affected in Catholic states and/or countries?)
"Who had the presumption to think that an adult public could not handle the sight of kissing and intimacy between two men?" inquired Aurelio Mancuso, president of the gay advocacy group Arcigay, which has [...]

DOSTANA, THROUGH THE EYES OF PAINTER: Censorship

Agence France-Presse reports that the radical nationalist Hindu groups Sanatan Sanstha and Hindu Jananagruti have succeeded in getting the International Film Festival of India, held in the old Portuguese territory of Goa, to withdraw Maqbool Fida Husain’s 1967 documentary short Through the Eyes of Painter.
Husain, 93, who has been called India’s Picasso, became enmeshed in the mid-1990s in an ugly uproar over his paintings of nude Hindu goddesses, for which he was sued and received death threats from Hindu fanatics. He currently divides his time between London and Dubai.
The 39th Goa Film Festival — all the poorer for having caved in to censorship forces — comes to a close on December 2.
***
"A single bench [...]

Youssef Chahine

Youssef Chahine, possibly the world’s most renowned Arab filmmaker and the winner of a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival, died today at Al-Maadi Military Hospital in Cairo. About four weeks ago, Chahine fell into a coma after suffering a brain hemorrhage. He was 82.
Throughout his nearly six-decade career, Chahine tackled various genres and styles, ranging from socially conscious melodramas such as the Grand Hotel-like Cairo Station (1958), which remains his best-known film, to politically charged dramas addressing government repression and the threat of Islamic fundamentalism. Additionally, his (socially conscious) romantic drama The Blazing Sun (1954) launched the career of Omar Sharif.
Born in Alexandria on January 25, 1926, to a Christian family of Greek and Lebanese origin, [...]

SALÒ, OR THE 120 DAYS OF SODOM d: Pier Paolo Pasolini

Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma / Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)
Direction: Pier Paolo Pasolini. Screenplay: Pier Paolo Pasolini and Sergio Citti; inspired by the Marquis de Sade’s book. Cast: Paolo Bonacelli, Giorgio Cataldi, Umberto Paolo Quintavalle, Aldo Valletti, Caterina Boratto, Elsa De Giorgi, Hélène Surgère, Sergio Fascetti, Bruno Musso, Antonio Orlando
 

 
By Dan Schneider of Cosmoetica:
Why is it that bad artists always try to justify their garbage by claiming to be experimental, political, or any other label that does not pertain to the quality of the artwork itself? Well, it’s simple — they cannot justify it in any other way. Naturally, when the film or novel or painting has been banned in many places, it [...]

Four Documentaries Banned from 2008 Singapore Film Festival

Screendaily reports that four documentaries scheduled for the 21st Singapore International Film Festival (SIFF), which kicked off on April 4, have been banned by local censors.
According to the report, two of the documentaries — Arab-American director Bassam Haddad’s Arabs and Terrorism, about opposing views on political terror, and Mano Khalil’s David the Tolhildan, which follows the son of a former Swiss Federal Supreme Court president who joined the Kurdish armed independence movement PKK — "were ‘disallowed’ on account of their sympathetic portrayal of allegedly terrorist organizations."
"Films which portray terrorist organizations in a positive light by lending support and voice to justify their cause through violence are disallowed under the film classification guidelines," said Amy Chua, chairman of Singapore’s Board [...]

Melbourne Queer Film Festival: Q&A with Festival Director Lisa Daniel

While London’s Lesbian & Gay Film Festival is going on in full force, here’s a brief q&a (via e-mail) with Lisa Daniel, the director of another gay film festival elsewhere in the world, the Melbourne Queer Film Festival.
First held in 1991, the Melbourne Queer Film Festival is reportedly one of the longest-running of its kind.
Its 18th edition, which took place several weeks ago, created quite a bit of a stir when a scheduled screening of The Erotic Films of Peter De Rome had to be canceled because of governmental censorship.
In the Q&A, Daniel talks a little bit about the festival’s history and the Peter De Rome controversy.
 
I recall reading that the Melbourne Queer Film Festival is one of the [...]

John Huston Documentary Double Bill: SAN PIETRO and LET THERE BE LIGHT

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences‘ John Huston Lecture on Documentary Film will acknowledge John Huston himself with a special screening of his controversial World War II documentary classics San Pietro (aka The Battle of San Pietro) (above, 1944) and Let There Be Light (1946), on Tuesday, April 15, at 7:30 p.m. at the Linwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood. Tony Huston, John’s son, will introduce the films.
As per the Academy’s press release, "these documentaries’ historical significance and current relevance will be among the topics covered in a post-screening panel discussion with Dr. Charles Wolfe, professor of film and media studies, UC Santa Barbara; Dr. Betsy McLane, documentary historian and author; and Richard E. Robbins, producer-director of Operation Homecoming: [...]

Censorship at Melbourne’s Queer Film Festival

And you thought that Australia is a democracy, where adults are allowed to make their own choices regarding the movies (or books?) they want to enjoy without government interference? Well, think again…
Via the 2008 Melbourne Queer Film Festival website:
"The films they didn’t want you to see!
"The Melbourne Queer Film Festival special presentation of The Erotic Films of Peter de Rome [1973] has been denied exemption from classification by the Office of Film & Literature Classification and is unable to be screened at this year’s Festival. Instead the session will be replaced with the Australian premiere screening of Whirlwind, directed by Richard Le May."
…
"Festival Director, Lisa Daniel says, ‘The MQFF is terribly disappointed not to be able to show Melbourne audiences [...]

Net Neutrality: MPAA’s President Dan Glickman Attacks It

Dan Glickman is the current president of the Motion Picture Association of America, which represents the business interests of the big Hollywood studios which, for their part, are out there to defend the business interests of the megaconglomerates that own them.
At the film business Showest convention in Las Vegas, Glickman declared that "no one here needs a lecture on what happens when one illegal copy makes its way to the Internet and is instantly available to the world. Today, new tools are emerging that allow us to work with Internet service providers to prevent this illegal activity. And new efforts are emerging in Washington to stop this essential progress.
"This effort is being called by its proponents ‘Net neutrality.’ It’s a [...]

Ann Arbor Film Festival 2008 – Special Guests

The 46th Ann Arbor Film Festival will be held from March 25–30. More than 100 independent filmmakers from around the world are expected to attend, in addition to several special guests on a night devoted to freedom of speech issues. Among those guests are Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt, cinematographer-filmmaker Ellen Kuras, and artist Steve Kurtz.
Larry Flynt will join producer-director Joan Brooker-Marks for the screening of her documentary Larry Flynt: The Right to be Left Alone, which plays on Saturday, March 29 at 7:30pm at the Michigan Theater.
From the Ann Arbor festival website:
"Both hero and villain, purveyor of pornography and tireless civil rights advocate, the always controversial publisher of Hustler magazine Larry Flynt is the subject of Joan [...]

Thomas Doherty to Discuss HOLLYWOOD’S CENSOR: JOSEPH I. BREEN & THE PRODUCTION CODE ADMINISTRATION

Academy Film Scholar Thomas Doherty will discuss his newly released book Hollywood’s Censor: Joseph I. Breen & The Production Code Administration (mentioned on this blog in the post "Joseph I. Breen: Anti-Semite?") on Monday, March 17, at 7:30 p.m. at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences‘ Linwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood. Admission is free. (More details below.)
As per the Academy’s press release, "Hollywood’s Censor tells the little-known story of Joseph I. Breen, one of the most powerful men in motion picture industry history. Breen reigned over the Production Code Administration, the Hollywood office tasked with censoring the American screen, from 1934 to 1954. He dictated ‘final cut’ over thousands of movies — more than any other individual in [...]

Genie Awards 2008 Winners

The Genie Awards 2008 ceremony, held last night in Toronto, was dominated by Sarah Polley’s remarkably accomplished directorial debut, Away from Her, which won a total of 7 awards.
The story of a man coming to terms with the fact that his Alzheimer’s-stricken wife has fallen in love with another patient at her mental hospital won Genies for best film, best director, best adapted screenplay (Polley, from Alice Munro’s short story "The Bear Came Over the Mountain"), best actor (Gordon Pinsent, who has been unfairly ignored south of the border), best actress (Julie Christie), best supporting actress (Kristen Thomson), and the Claude Jutra Award for best first film. (Away from Her lost only the best editing award.)
As quoted in the [...]

THE GOLDEN COMPASS and Catholic Censors

Nicole Kidman as Mrs. Coulter in The Golden Compass

Via Tim Drake’s "U.S. Bishops Withdraw Controversial Movie Review" in the National Catholic Register:
"’The aggressively anti-religious, anti-Christian undercurrent in The Golden Compass is unmistakable and at times undisguised,’ [Denver Archbishop Charles] Chaput wrote in a column in the Dec. 12 issue of the Denver Catholic Register. ‘The wicked Mrs. Coulter alludes approvingly to a fictional version of the doctrine of original sin. When a warrior Ice Bear — one of the heroes of the story — breaks into the local Magisterium headquarters to take back the armor stolen from him, the exterior walls of the evil building are covered with Eastern Christian icons. And for Catholics in our own world, of [...]

Joseph I. Breen: Anti-Semite?

Thomas Doherty in The Forward:
"’These Jews seem to think of nothing but money making and sexual indulgence,’ fumed Joseph I. Breen in a letter to the Rev. Wilfrid Parsons, S.J., editor of the Jesuit weekly America. The year was 1932, and the hot-tempered Irish Catholic, lately summoned to Hollywood, Calif., by motion picture czar Will H. Hays to convert a reprobate medium, was raging at the moguls who blocked his missionary work. ‘People whose daily morals would not be tolerated in the toilet of a pest house hold the good jobs out here and wax fat on it,’ he marveled. ‘Ninety-five percent of these folks are Jews of an Eastern European lineage. They are, probably, the scum of the scum [...]

Remembering The Hollywood Ten

Front row (from left): Herbert Biberman, attorneys Martin Popper and Robert W. Kenny, Albert Maltz, Lester Cole. Middle row: Dalton Trumbo, John Howard Lawson, Alvah Bessie, Samuel Ornitz. Back row: Ring Lardner Jr., Edward Dmytryk, Adrian Scott.
Ed Rampell, author of Progressive Hollywood: A People’s Film History of the United States, remembers the Hollywood Ten at Truthdig.
"Sixty years ago, as wicked witch-hunters descended upon the movie industry, Judy Garland took to the microphone for a coast-to-coast radio program called ‘Hollywood Fights Back!’ Instead of singing, the 25-year-old starlet asked Americans:
‘Have you been to a movie this week? Are you going to a movie tonight, or maybe tomorrow? Look around the room. Are there any newspapers lying on the floor? Any [...]

INCORRECT ENTERTAINMENT: Q&A with Author Anthony Slide

Veteran author Anthony Slide has another book out, Incorrect Entertainment or Trash from the Past: A history of political incorrectness and bad taste in 20th century American popular culture (BearManor, 2007, paperback, US$19.95).
Lengthy title for a highly controversial subject matter. Chapters range from "This Race Business" and "Sex" to "Bodily Functions and Dysfunctions" and "Hollywood’s Fascist Follies." There’s surely something in the book to offend every reader.
Mr. Slide, whose Now Playing was also q&a’ed in this blog, has cordially agreed to answer several questions about his latest tome. Considering his book and its subject matter, Slide’s responses are as controversial as to be expected.
Needless to say, he disagrees with me on a number of topics, from the Production Code’s [...]

The First Hollywood Actor to Lampoon Hitler

In the San Diego Jewish Journal, Lynn Rapaport talks about the first Hollywood comedian to play Adolf Hitler on film. No, not Charles Chaplin. Try Moe Howard of the Three Stooges.
Rapaport’s article is a must read despite a couple of mistakes.
For instance, Hollywood has always — not just "until the late 1930s" — relied on foreign revenues to sustain its filmmaking factories. And long before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, there were several Hollywood movies that dealt with the Nazi menace, e.g., Warner Bros.’ Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939), MGM’s The Mortal Storm (1940), Paramount’s Arise My Love (1940), and the United Artists-distributed Foreign Correspondent (1940) and So Ends Our Night (1941). In addition, of course, to [...]

OBSCENE at the Toronto Film Festival 2007

Neil Ortenberg and Daniel O’Connor’s Obscene is screening today at the Toronto International Film Festival. Thom Powers says the following about the film:
"Barney Rosset is one of the great unsung heroes in post-war America’s battle for free expression. As publisher of Grove Press and the Evergreen Review, he challenged obscenity bans against Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Tropic of Cancer, Naked Lunch and more, repeatedly risking his company on court battles. His literary and political instincts led him to publish works as diverse as Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and The Autobiography of Malcolm X. His love of film spurred him to produce Strange Victory, a 1948 documentary about post-war racism. Later, he fought censors as far as the Supreme Court to [...]

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