Film Censorship: 0 - 9

 

 

 

 

1 Berlin-Harlem

Directed by Lothar Lambert - Wolfram Zobus / 1974 / West Germany / IMDb

1 BERLIN-HARLEM was rated R in March 1985 after footage was deleted. The reasons 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

Directed by Enzo.G.Castellari / 1982 / Italy / IMDb

This film has never had problems with the Australian censors. It is included because the distributor released a censored print.

 

1990: RCA/Columbia Video originally released THE BRONX WARRIORS in 1983 in a censored print that ran only 79:45.

At 61:30, Ogre's decapitation of one of the savages was missing. This made up only a few seconds of the almost nine minutes of missing footage.

 

Hoyts Distribution had an 87m videotape rated R in August 1985. This was never released.

 

On August 3, 2002, SBS premiered 1990: THE BRONX WARRIORS as the Saturday night Cult Movie. Unlike the dubbed full screen RCA/Columbia release, here the film was presented letterboxed and in the original Italian language. More importantly, at 88:24 it was 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.

 

1990: The Bronx Warriors (1982) - RCA-Columbia [au] VHS1990: The Bronx Warriors (1982) - Stomp Visual [au] DVD

 

 

 

 

99 Women

Directed by Jess Franco / 1969 / Italy-Spain-UK-Germany / IMDb

This film has never had problems with the Australian censors. It is included because the distributor released a censored print.

 

 In the early 80s, K&C video released an 80:33 print of 99 WOMEN on tape.

Thanks to Marc Morris for confirming that it was missing the following footage.

On the other hand, the Australian tape includes one establishing shot (from 42:32 to 42:33) that is not in the US edition.

 

Umbrella Entertainment had a DVD passed MA15+ (Strong sexual violence, Strong sex scenes and sexual references, Nudity) in June 2007. It was released in August 2007.

 

 

Jess Franco and the Australian censors

Over the years, the following Jess Franco films have had problems with the Australia censors. All are covered in our Film Censorship Database.

 

99 Women (1969) - K&C Video [au] VHS99 Women (1969) - Umbrella Entertainment [au] DVD

 

 

 

 

60 Second Relief

Directed by Rupert Owen / 2006 / Australia

60 SECOND RELIEF was a one minute short that was due to screen in 2007 at the 8th Melbourne Underground Film Festival.

 

 

MUFF 8 Program Notes

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.

 

 

The OFLC prevent MUFF from screening the film

The screening of 60 SECOND RELIEF was abandoned after the OFLC's Amy Wooding refused to grant film festival exemptions to it, and six other features. This is not the first time that MUFF had run into problems with the censors.

In 2004, the OFLC demanded that THE TOOLBOX MURDERS (1978), WIFE TO BE SACRIFICED, GUINEA PIG: DEVILS EXPERIMENT and GUINEA PIG: FLOWERS OF FLESH AND BLOOD be pulled from the festival.

The Melbourne Underground Film Festival issued the following press release.

 

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!

 

 

The Director, Rupert Owen speaks.

Rupert Owen's Blog
 snuffboxfilms.blogspot.com
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.

 

 

60 Second Relief (2006) - A Brief Review

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 is hardcore, but contains nothing that could not make it into an X18+ (or even a R18+ art film) rating.

 

 

 

 

70k

Directed by Jamie Howarth / 2006 / Australia

In June 2006, 70K was banned by the OFLC. The applicant was The Kingdom of Sad Machines. The DVD features the work of the Melbourne graffiti crew 70k.

 

In their 2005-2006 Annual Report, the Classification Board explained the reasons for the RC-rating.

The Classification Board also refused classification for the film, 70K, because it deals with crime (the defacement of public property) in such a way that it offends against the standards of propriety generally acceptable to reasonable adults. The film features documentary footage of people, with masks, disguises or their faces blurred out, vandalising passenger trains and applying graffiti to walls in Australian cities, including Brisbane and Melbourne.

The film is edited to rock music and does not feature commentary, interpretation, justification or explanation. In the Board’s majority view, the film glamourises and attempts to legitimise what are criminal acts committed in Australia and which have a negative impact on Australia and the Australian people.

 

 

Michael Atkinson's Graffiti censorship proposal

The South Australian Attorney-General Michael Atkinson put the issue of graffiti on the table at the 2005-2006 Standing Committee of Attorneys General Censorship meetings. His proposal was to make it even easier to ban films, games, and books that feature graffiti.

Annual Report to the Council of Australian Governments 2005-06
Standing Committee of Attorneys General (Censorship)

In response to a request from the South Australian Attorney-General a proposal to lower the threshold of the RC guidelines to deal with graffiti crime, was added to the agenda.

 

Michael Atkinson's proposal was voted down at the 2006-2007 meetings.

Annual Report to the Council of Australian Governments 2006-07
Standing Committee of Attorneys General (Censorship)

Ministers in relation to RC Guidelines and Matters of Crime:
Graffiti expressed their views on a proposal to expand the current guidelines so that matters portraying crime in a favorable light would be refused classification, with a majority expressing opposition to the proposal. Ministers agreed to remove this item from the agenda.

 

 

70K at MUFF 8

70K was due to screen in September 2007, at the 8th Melbourne Underground Film Festival.

Melbourne Underground Film Festival 8
Program Notes
70K (2006)
Australia
Dir: Jamie Howarth
[Dur: 46 mins]

The work of 70K can be regularly seen sprayed on trains and other parts of public transport systems across the country. I had to walk underneath a 70K adorned bridge to get here. But besides aerosol cans, 70K have also been aiming cameras at their walls and the result is essentially a clip collection culled from more than a few years of regularly going on and off the rails. While the quality of a lot of the footage is understandably rough at best, there’s not a lot to learn about the artists at work in 70K other than their ability to digitally mask any recognizable presence and their choice in music that includes Thin Lizzy, Dolly Parton and the obvious Ozzy Osbourne track, “Crazy Train”.

At 26 minutes there’s 30 seconds of narration but other than an even shorter snatch of a train Left Ear worker reporting graffiti over a radio, the only brief footage towards the end demonstrates that, “there is more to life than just vandalism”, like vomiting, staggering and falling down. Recommended for gunzels, potential gunzels and those who just can’t get enough graffiti.

tullski@gmail.com
www.thekingdomofsadmachines.com
6pm Sun 23 Sept 2007
LOOP
23 Meyers Place
Melbourne
VIC 3000

 

 

The OFLC prevent MUFF from screening 70K

The screening of 70K was abandoned after the OFLC's Amy Wooding refused to grant film festival exemptions to it, and six other features. This was not the first time that MUFF had run into problems with the censors.

In 2004 the OFLC demanded that THE TOOLBOX MURDERS (1978), WIFE TO BE SACRIFICED, GUINEA PIG: DEVILS EXPERIMENT and GUINEA PIG: FLOWERS OF FLESH AND BLOOD be pulled from the festival.

The Melbourne Underground Film Festival issued the following press release.

 

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!

 

 

70K wins at MUFF 8

Although 70K did not screen, it was still given an award at MUFF 8.

 

MUFF 8 Winners!
October 1st 2007

Announced at Closing Night Sunday 30 September at F-Four Nightclub.

You will notice that 70K and Ashley and Kisha have been given awards. Though these films did not screen at MUFF due to the ban from the OFLC the jury saw them and were so impressed as to present them with awards.

Thanks you to all entrants and winners especially the stand out MUFF Neu films A Nocturne, Left Ear, Black Water, Taber Corn, Garth Goes Hitch Hiking and Moonlight and Magic and great shorts Forged and The Interrogation Of Bryan – MUFF Festival Director Richard Wolstencroft

Best Documentary (Tie) Garth Goes Hitch Hiking Director: Gregory Pakis
70k Director: Jamie Howarth

That’s it for MUFF 8! Ciao.

 

 

Graffiti and the Australian censors

In November 2005, Mark Ecko's graffiti game GETTING UP: CONTENTS UNDER PRESSURE was passed with an MA15+ (Strong Violence, Strong Themes) rating. An appeal was made to the Classification Review Board who banned it in February 2006. Full details can be found in our Games Censorship Database.

In March 2007, the Classification Board passed the documentary JISOE with an MA15+ (Strong themes, Strong coarse language, Strong drug use and references) rating.

In January 2009, the Queensland graffiti magazine, DIRTY DEEDS #8, was banned by the Classification Board.

 

 

Next Films: 9 Songs (2004)