1 Berlin-Harlem

Dir Lothar Lambert - Wolfram Zobus / 1974 / West Germany

This was classified R18+ in March 1985 after some footage was deleted. The reason for the cuts were infrequent, gratuitous, high level sex. 

The Australian Film Institute appealed the decision and managed to get the film passed uncut. However the Review Board attached the following conditions.

"Direct the Film Censorship Board to classify 'R' without deletions for no more than two screenings at each capital city of Australia as part of a Lothar Lambert retrospective season in 1985."

1990:The Bronx Warriors  

Dir Enzo.G.Castellari / 1982 / Italy 

The missing footage discussed for this film is not the work of the OFLC!

Originally released in 1983 by RCA/Columbia Video in a censored print that ran only 79min 45sec. This compares with 88min 34sec for the Danish tape that is generally considered to be uncut. The decapitation by Ogre of one of the savages is censored at around the 61min 30sec point. This is obviously only a few seconds of the almost nine minutes of missing footage. 

Hoyts Distribution had an 87min (v) tape rated R18+ in August 1985. It looks like this version was never released.

On the 3rd of August 2002, SBS premiered the film as the Saturday night Cult Movie. Unlike the dubbed full screen RCA/Columbia tape, here the film was presented letterboxed and in its original Italian language. More importantly at 88min 24sec it would seem to be just about uncut.

In October 2005 the uncut version was passed by the Classification Board with an R18+ (High Level Violence). Stomp Visual released the DVD in October 2005.

DVD Comparisons 

99 Women

Dir Jess Franco / 1969 / Italy-Spain-UK-Germany

One of Franco's earliest Women in Prison films was released on tape in the early 80's by the great K&C video label. The very rare tape runs 80min 33sec, and is missing the following: 

5m 27s A few seconds of a woman walking across the cell is missing due to print damage.
21m 21s Some nudity has been cut.
65m 33s Shots of lovemaking in cave cut.
On the other hand, the Australian tape includes one establishing shot (from 42m 32s to 42m 33s) that is not in the US edition. 
Thanks to Mondo Erotico for this list. 

Umbrella Entertainment had a DVD passed MA15+ (Strong sexual violence, Strong sex scenes and sexual references, Nudity) on June 1st 2007.

Other Jess Franco titles of his that have ran into problems with our censors include:

Other Franco titles that have found their way more or less uncut on to video in Australia include:

DVD Comparisons

60 Second Relief 

Dir Rupert Owen / 2006 / Australia

This one minute short was due to be shown at the 8th Melbourne Underground Film Festival in 2007. 

The film starts with:

60 Second Relief
A Film by Rupert Owen
The Office for Film, Literature, and Classification states that "Pornography is sexually explicit media that is primarily intended to arouse the audience" so....
Set
Go!

What follows is one minute of speeded up film of a couple having sex on a bed. It's hardcore, but contains nothing that couldn't make it into an X18+ (or even a R18+ art film) rating.

***

Melbourne Underground Film Festival 8
Program Notes
Mini MUFF 
Local & International Short films curated by Jason Turley 
Session 1 7pm Mon 24 Sept LOOP.

60 SECOND RELIEF 
Dir: Rupert Owen/2006/Australia/1 min/Experimental 
A challenge to the OFLC. 

It was scrapped after the OFLC's Amy Wooding refused to grant it, and six other features film festival exemptions. This is not the first time that MUFF had ran into problems with the censors. In 2004 the OFLC demanded that The Toolbox Murders (1978),  Wife to be Sacrificed,  and Za Ginipiggu 1 and 2 be pulled from the festival.

The Melbourne Underground Film Festival issued the following press release on September 20th 2007.

MUFF 8 films banned! 
September 20th 2007

The Following films have been banned from the OFLC: 

70k 
Schulmädchen-Report: Was Eltern nicht für möglich halten (aka The Schoolgirl Report) 
Sex Wish 
The Farmer's Daughter 
Ashley & Kisha: Finding the Right Fit 
Whore 
60 Second Relief 

We will replacing them with other films from the MUFF program. 

This Sunday 70k will be replaced with a second screening of Streetsweeper… a good MUFF Neu that we can play. Whore and 60 Second Relief are withdrawn and nothing will fill their place. The Other films will be replaced. More details on Monday. 

Will the media even cover this? Do people care about censorship in this country?

Letter to OFLC 

Here is a copy of a letter sent to our OFLC contact Amy Wooding. Any response we will share with our MUFF audience: 

Hi Amy, I thought I'd write to you about this year's decision. 

So the films I cannot play at MUFF 8 are the following: 

70k, Schulmädchen-Report: Was Eltern nicht für möglich halten (aka The Schoolgirl Report), Sex Wish, The Farmer's Daughter, Ashley & Kisha: Finding the Right Fit, Whore and 60 Second Relief 

Is this correct? 

I will comply and withdraw them from screenings and replace them with films you have granted permission for me to play (like Moonlight and Magic, Left Ear, etc). 

A few small questions, you might be able to answer or maybe the OFLC director can answer them (If you have his email I'll cc this to him): 

Why is pornography of the most gross and offensive nature (like shitting and pissing films) available for sale in most Adult bookshops in Victoria? 

Also: Are not X rated films only supposed to be available in Canberra but for sale in 90% of Adult shops in Vic and NSW and in other states? 

Why is MUFF referred to the justice department for wishing to screen a couple of classy or forgotten pieces of erotica with artistic merit to an audience over 18 (who are keen to see them) and nothing done about the illegal X rated sale of videos and DVD's in sex shops that is rampant? 

Is there not a hint of corruption or hypocrisy and definitely absurdity here?

Why are X rated films banned at all! It begs the question given the ready availability of it in on the Internet? Available on any PC, anywhere. 

A MUFF screening is a minor problem compared to the flaunting of your rules every day of every year by the Adult Sex Industry. 

Why are films like Shortbus and 9 Songs passed though they clearly contravene some of your guidelines? 

Why is MIFF allowed to play a film like Exterminating Angles in a section that focussed on perversity and erotica though that too contravenes your guideline? And we cannot do it? We will comply with your absurd ruling out of fear of prosecution to our small festival but register our complaint also that this is neither fair or just. We believe strongly it represents a violation of the basic human rights of Australian citizens to freedom of speech, assembly and expression. 

Enabling a festival like MUFF or MIFF to play whatever they choose from the classy end of the sex industry will lift both festivals standing in the International community and not reveal a backward 1950's attitude to sex and censorship in Australia. Your own guidelines date from over 50 years ago. Surely a review is in order? 

I am cc-ing this email to the MIFF Festival Director Richard Moore for his interest. His comments and feelings on the matter I would be interested to hear. 

Any answers to these questions or our complaint will be greatly appreciated from the OFLC. 

This letter is not written in disrespect but in a wish for better clarification of the important issues it contains. 

Best Regards Richard Wolstencroft

PS. Why is 70k banned it has no sex or violence at all does it?

MUFF opens tonight at Toff in Town come down and support a festival that believes in fighting censorship!

***

Rupert Owen's Blog
Friday, September 21, 2007

Film banned from screening at MUFF

My film got banned from MUFF as did Tony Comstock's "Ashley and Kisha: Finding the Right Fit", as did others. Funny how my short film played the One Minute Film Festival in Switzerland; which was not an underground festival but a fairly mainstream international one without a peep of protest from the chocolate loving Swiss.

I don’t understand the processes at work here. An underground film festival with a target market of people completely prepared for challenging or sense flexing cinema, totally aware of the potential content of the films they are going to see, possibly one hundred percent supportive of subversive or fringe cinema, get audited by a kind of mauve (Pink trying to be purple - to borrow some Whistler) militia who has consulted the mob (to borrow a Henry Miller favourite) and decided that they, and only they shall have the final say on what kind of material is suitable for us as a public to subscribe to.

Why does sex cause all the controversy? It’s sex for goodness sake. It is fucking, humping, fornicating, rooting, copulating, and it is done by billions of people worldwide every day – and that is why there are billions of people worldwide to do it – even if all you want in life is kids, then you got to screw to get them. If I want to add some sort of pseudo religious mockery over the whole process, I’d say that God invented the fuck as some sort of heavenly porn channel. I imagine the angels with their robes hitched, spread eagled on the couch shaped clouds, having a wank to some couple in Greenland going at it in the kitchen.

If I made a short film that had me say spitting on the street – why not pull that film? Surely spitting on the street is considered disgusting? Surely we don’t want our impressionable minds confronted with the slow motion ricochet of mucus bouncing off the pavement and onto the sandal of someone waiting at a bus stop. Surely this anti-social act must be considered something we only do in private in the shower with the lights off and the curtains drawn. It all goes around in circles though doesn’t it? Just look at all the periods in history when values and morals loosened, you see them wedged between periods of rigid conservatism. A younger generation comes bursting through with new ideas, fresh outlooks and approaches, and then they get old becoming stifled and conservative – then their children grow up only to try and tip the scales again … so goes this revolving door of human development.

I’ve never had a film banned by the Office of Literature, Film and Classification before. The thing is that my film was a challenge to the OFLC because their definition of pornography is material intended to arouse, looks like they got aroused in sixty seconds, good for them, it that may just kick their libidos back into business.

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