"Child porn" drama pulled from festival

South African censor FPB [Film and Publication Board] has pulled the Durban International Film Festival’s opening night film on the basis that it contains child pornography, according to South Africa’s Mail & Guardian.

Jahmil XT Qubeka’s film Of Good Report tells the story of a teacher who is a sexual predator that grooms and seduces one of his students.

Audiences were not given any warning of the cancellation but instead, when lights were dimmed, were greeted with the message: “This film has been refused classification by the FPB [Film and Publication Board] in terms of the FPB Act 1996. Unfortunately we may not screen the film Of Good Report as to do so would constitute a criminal offence.”

On stage, Qubeka burned his identity document and taped his mouth shut. According to Mail & Guardian website, ‘the audience reacted to the event in stunned silence and disbelief’.

DIFF manager Peter Machen chose not to show another film on opening night in a gesture of solidarity with the filmmakers. “It would have been a massive insult to the filmmakers, the process of filmmaking, and to audiences to just brush this under the carpet,” he said at a press conference on Friday.

“We have to recognise that this represents the thin end of the wedge. There is a huge wave of conservatism rising in cultural production in this country.”

The FPB has ordered ordered that “all copies of the film must either be surrendered to the police or destroyed”. During the scene in question, according to the FPB report, “the sexual act of cunnilingus is strongly implied along with sexual effeus [sex sounds] made by [protagonist] Nolitha”.

All films screened at the festival are usually exempt from classification. However, this year the FCB asked to see some of the films being shown.

The film’s producer Mike Auret said in an interview on Friday: “I defy anyone to be sexually gratified by this scene. It’s accompanied by disturbing music, it’s sinister. There is no Barry White in the background. The scene is designed to disturb. She is falling into the clutches of monster.

“It is a disturbing film because it shines a light on sexual predators, it is not designed in any way to cause arousal, but rather the opposite. We are not denying that the film is about a teacher having sex with a pupil but it’s not designed as pornography, it cannot be used as pornography.”

The FPB’s decision to deny the screening came on Wednesday evening. Machen launched an appeal process but was informed that the FCB’s appeal process would take 30 days.

In addition, the festival’s first screening of Michael Winterbottom’s The Look of Love also had to be cancelled yesterday after the film was not sent to the FPB in time for classification.