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Prizes for unscreened films |
TWO films that were pulled from the program of the Melbourne Underground Film Festival have proceeded to win prizes. Screenings of 70K and Ashley and Kisha were cancelled due to bans by the Office of Film and Literature Classification, but the festival's jury was so impressed, according to MUFF's press release, it named 70K joint best documentary (with Garth Goes Hitch Hiking) and Ashley and Kisha won awards for best foreign film and best foreign director.
The OFLC did not grant exemptions for those films, as they would have been rated X or RC (refused classification) were they submitted, says the office's spokesman. The classification guidelines say that a film containing "detailed instruction or promotion in matters of crime" falls into the RC category (70K is a documentary about local graffitists), while material "which contains real depictions of actual . . . sexual activity" is rated X. The ban has prompted Ashley and Kisha's New York-based director, Tony Comstock, to step up his campaign against the OFLC.
Three of Comstock's previous documentaries, which explore the intimate relationships of real couples (straight and gay), are rated X, which means they cannot be publicly screened. Last year, however, MUFF disregarded the prohibition and screened one of those X films, Damon and Hunter. Comstock alleges that the latest ban is "punishment" for MUFF's defiance last year, and is railing against what he sees as Australia's archaic, out-of-touch and heavy-handed censorship regime (go to the "TV message boards" of abc.net.au to follow the debate). Documentary filmmaker and broadcaster Megan Spencer has come to Comstock's defence, arguing that the X rating for his films is inconsistent with R-rated films such as Shortbus and 9 Songs, both of which depict real sex acts. She also argues that the documentaries are neither exploitation nor straight pornography, and fall outside of the existing classification categories. "He's taken the nastiness, the darkness, the exploitation (of pornography) and replaced it with a celebration and joy and honesty that's not seen in those films, so what are they (the censor) protecting us from now? He's changed the way we can view sex on screen, at least that's what I believe his work is trying to do." |
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