OT: Censorship of Breillat's 'Fat Girl' in Ontario

From: Tim Spurway (tim@twotoprecords.com)
Date: Wed Nov 21 2001 - 17:22:18 CET

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    The insidious silencing of important works of art by women continues. This
    time it's the gov't of Ontario, Canada. Please direct protest email to:

    robert.warren@cbs.gov.on.ca

    Tuesday November 20 5:56 PM EST
     Yahoo! News
    Appeal panel upholds decision to ban controversial film Fat Girl in Ontario
    By ANDREA BAILLIE

    TORONTO (CP) - The Ontario Film Review Board's decision to ban a critically
    praised movie about the sexual awakening of two sisters was upheld Tuesday
    by an appeal panel.

    In a 3-2 vote, the five-member panel supported an earlier move to keep Fat
    Girl from the province's movie theatres because of sexual nudity involving
    teenagers. "The feeling was (the nudity) probably wasn't necessary to get
    the point across," said review board chair Robert Warren. <--
    robert.warren@cbs.gov.on.ca

    Fat Girl, directed by France's Catherine Breillat, examines sexual rites of
    passage through the eyes of pudgy 13-year-old Anais (Anais Reboux), and her
    beautiful 15-year-old sister Elena (Roxane Mesquida).

    Titled A Ma Soeur! in French, the film was screened at the Toronto
    International Film Festival and has received impressive reviews.

    Peter Travers of Rolling Stone hailed Fat Girl as an "absolute stunner,"
    adding that "Breillat draws delicately nuanced performances from Mesquida
    and Reboux, and creates a raw portrait of female virginity under siege that
    has the blunt ring of truth."

    In the New York Times, Stephen Holden said the film "is much more than a
    perfectly realized vignette about seduction. It is the latest and most
    powerful dispatch yet from Ms. Breillat, France's most impassioned
    correspondent covering the war between the sexes."

    The film, which has been approved by boards in Quebec, British Columbia and
    the United Kingdom and has also been released in the United States, was
    rejected by two earlier Ontario review board panels.

    Under the province's Theatres Act, the board can reject a film if it shows
    sex-related nudity involving someone who is underage or appears to be
    underage.

    Co-distributors Cowboy Pictures and Lion's Gate films have refused to cut
    the offending scenes and launched an appeal that included letters from
    directors Atom Egoyan and David Cronenberg as well as academics who argued
    the film's merits.

    Now that the appeal has been rejected, Warren said the distributors have
    three options: to cut the film and re-submit it, to not distribute the film
    in Ontario, or to contest the decision in court.

    Cowboy Pictures co-president Noah Cowan said Tuesday from New York that the
    company had not yet decided its next move, but reiterated that the film
    would not be cut.

    Cowan has repeatedly suggested the ban hearkens back to the Ontario film
    review board's decisions in the early 1980s to ban acclaimed films like
    Louis Malle's Pretty Baby and Volker Schlondorff's The Tin Drum.

    "I'm extremely upset. I'm an Ontarian ... I remember not being able to see
    the greatest films being made in the rest of the world," said Cowan, former
    associate director for the Toronto International Film Festival.

    "It seemed like a distant nightmare. And here I am, involved in a situation
    where this is all happening again."

    Cowan said statements he received from two panel members who voted in favour
    of the film suggest the decision doesn't reflect the feeling of the general
    population.

    "We received .. written statements from two of the board members deploring
    the decision," he said.

    "(The board has) gone against what I feel is the will of Ontario here. This
    is not a decision that reflects the community standards of Ontario. This is
    a decision that condescends and insults the people of Ontario."

    But Warren insisted the decision to ban the film has sparked more positive
    e-mails and phone calls to the review board than negative ones.

    "We do an awful lot to try and make sure we're plugged in (to community
    standards)," he said. "A lot of people say if it's artistic, it doesn't
    matter what's in it. (But) film classification boards are in the business of
    drawing boundaries."

    He did acknowledge, however, that the board's decision is a highly unusual
    one.

    "When we're talking mainstream (movies) it's pretty unprecedented," he said.



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