In a four to three decision, the Classification Board has banned the grainy five minute mobile phone
footage of Saddam Hussein’s execution. The Eros association submitted the film for classification with
the expectation of an MA+15 or R18+ rating based on thousands of previous classifications for
depictions of executions, both real and simulated.

Eros CEO Fiona Patten said that the decision was clearly made on political grounds and that the
Classification Board had ‘seen Eros coming’. “We submitted the film with the unashamedly political
agenda of using the MA or R rating it would get to draw attention to the fact that violence is treated
more easily than sex in the censorship game”, she said. “I think they saw our recent campaign in this
area and decided to head it off by giving the film an RC (Refused Classification) rating.”

However the decision now raises major inconsistencies in the classification of high level violence and
means that every newsroom director in the country who has authorised a broadcast of the footage or
who has electronically acquired or stored a copy of the film, is liable to severe penalties including two
years jail. “I would imagine that there would be dozens of copies of this banned film in the
Parliamentary Press Gallery only 100 metres from the Attorney General’s office”, she said. “This
constitutes a serious offence under the federal Classification Act. “

The film, entitled The Hanging, was subject to three minority opinions out of the seven who judged it.
One thought it should have received an R18+ classification; one an MA15+ rating and one though an
unrestricted M rating was appropriate. Ms Patten said that this showed the Board was far from unified
on the decision and supported her contention that the film was only banned for political reasons.
“While I personally and philosophically believe that this film should have been banned, generally films
which show a similar level of violence are submitted by a commercial agency are not”, she said. “In
order for this decision to be seen as credible by the wider community, the OFLC should ‘call in’
hundreds of films for re classification which have been classified in the past with levels of violence that
are 20 and 30 times higher than this one”.

Ms Patten said that up to half a dozen films like Executions, which shows a series of real life
executions, had been given R ratings in the past and made The Hanging look tame by comparison. She
said that there were hundreds of ‘Chainsaw Massacre’ films with extremely high levels of violence
available from family video libraries and on line entertainment outlets hosted from Australia, because
they had been given R18+ ratings or even MA15+ ratings in the past.
Fiona Patten: 0413 734613 www.eros.org.au