Entertainment News
2007-04-25
Singapore film
festival pulls local movie after gay sex scenes censored
A Singaporean
movie about a homosexual relationship between a teacher and
his 18-year-old student h
A Singaporean
movie about a homosexual relationship between a teacher and
his 18-year-old student has been pulled from a film festival
after government censors said sex scenes from the film
had to be cut.
Organizers of the
Singapore International Film Festival and producers of
Solos said Monday the film would be withdrawn
from public screening, in line with the festival's policy of
showing only uncensored films.
The festival
opened April 18 and runs through April 30. Solos was
originally scheduled to be screened on Wednesday.
The film received
an R21 rating, which restricts it to audiences over age
21, with three cuts from the Singapore Board of Film
Censors, said Florence Ang, the film's producer.
The board said in
a statement that the film contained "prolonged and
explicit homosexual lovemaking scenes including scenes of
oral sex and threesome sex," which had to be removed.
The cuts make up
about five minutes of the 77-minute film, Ang said.
She said the
filmmakers had not expected the censors to demand the cuts
as the 20-year-old festival, which is seen as catering to a
relatively limited niche audience, has previously
screened movies she said were more graphic.
"I was actually
prepared that we may have had cuts if we wanted to
organize a commercial screening, but I didn't expect that
for the festival itself," Ang said.
Sex between gay
men, even among consenting adults, is defined in
Singapore as "an act of gross indecency" punishable by a
maximum of two years in jail. There have been few
prosecutions, however.
Solos will be screened without edits to a
private jury for the festival's Silver Screen awards, which
honors Asian works, Ang said, adding that she will
appeal to the board of censors to reduce the number of
cuts for a possible commercial screening later in the
year.
Another film that
was withdrawn from the festival was Princess, an
animated feature by Danish director Anders
Morgenthaler about a priest on a crusade against those who
abused his sister, who was a porn star before her
death. Censors said a scene that depicts "a porn star
in a nun's habit, with a cross protruding from her
behind" had to go because it was religiously offensive.
Singapore has in
recent years relaxed some censorship regulations for
films and plays in an effort to market itself as a media and
arts center. But controls on media and filmmakers, on
the whole, remain tight.
Authorities two
weeks ago banned a documentary about the 17-year
detention of a former left-wing activist in Singapore
because its "distorted and misleading" portrayal of
the events could undermine confidence in the
government. (Derrick Ho, AP)
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