In Berlin last year I had the honour of meeting Jennifer Lyon Bell, an American filmmaker with a compelling vision for erotic film. Her film Matinee is a gorgeous work of art, well written, masterfully acted and beautifully filmed. It is a wonderful addition to the growing canon of well-made, female-focused erotic films and I consider it to be part of the new wave of sex-positive movies that are forging a new path in porn.

Naturally this means the Australian Office of Film and Literature Classification has banned it.

Matinee was due to screen as part of the Melbourne Underground Film Festival over the weekend but the OFLC told MUFF it would be illegal to show the film in public, effectively banning it. The film has not been officially classifed by the panel; they merely made a brief decision based on… well, I’m not sure what. They haven’t actually seen the film. They found out it had real sex in it and that was enough, I suspect.






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MUFF and Jennifer have issued statements regarding the decision and they’re currently on the front page of the MUFF site.

The organisers rightly point out that the OFLC didn’t have a problem with Lars Van Trier’s Antichrist, which disturbingly depicts a scene of female genital mutilation and seems to be misogynist in intent. Jen’s film, which only shows two people having nuanced, meaningful, tender sex, is apparently more offensive than that.

MUFF says:

MUFF opposes the OFLC’s decision on the grounds that it represents a hypocritical and troubling suppression of transgressive female-centric sexuality on film. The modus operandi of Blue Artichoke Films, Bell’s production company, is to create films which portray realistic sexual intimacy, depict empowered female characters, possess artistic merit and strong narratives, and do not fall back upon the damaging and often dangerous stereotypes of female sexuality that the Western media is accustomed to. In other words, Bell is looking to produce films about sexuality which women can enjoy, free of masculine control.

MUFF are considering a “civil disobedience” screening as a way of protesting this ridiculous decision.

Jen writes:

Seriously? It’s just two characters enjoying sex in a realistic way that fits with their characters’ personalities. Consensual sex, nothing weird. Why on earth would that be dangerous to watch? What’s weird is that mainstream movies spend hours building up the characters in a story, then mangle the lovescene with brusque camera cutaways and awkward sheet-covering bedroom choreography as soon as the moment arrives. You never see James Bond have sex; after a few witty double entendres it’s fade-out then fade-up with a lit cigarette…and this is considered a perfectly acceptable depiction of sex on film. Frankly, I’d like to know more about how James Bond does it. Is he a true sexual connoisseur, able to quickly divine each woman’s preferences and feel from her subtle reactions whether she wants her G-spot stroked or her hands deliciously pinned to the bed? Or is he an arrogant Casanova who uses some weird abrasive “patented technique” on every woman he sleeps with, smugly congratulating himself “They all love it when I do that”? I’d like the movie better as a whole because it’d tell me a lot about who he is. Plus, if he was good, it’d be really fun to watch, wouldn’t it? The films that inspired me to mix explicit sex with story and character – Ken Park, 9 Songs, Shortbus – have all had rough roads. But I hoped that outside of America, my loving but prudish home country, everything would be easier. As it turns out, New York was no problem at all, and neither was Amsterdam (my current home). Strasbourg and Berlin festivals are happily screening it this fall. But Australia has a problem.

It’s depressing but not surprising that Matinee has been banned. It’s becoming increasingly apparent that our country’s ridiculous censorship laws are applied in an ad hoc manner and that they are out of touch with what most Australians think.

How is it that grown adults are prevented from seeing a film because it contains sex? And why aren’t we up in arms about this?

There are no reports in the major newspapers about this issue. I’m hoping to contact Margaret Pomeranz for a statement on where she stands with this. She was willing to be arrested for Ken Park in 2003… will she also speak out for Matinee?

Find out more about Matinee and Jennifer at the Blue Artichoke Films site.

Edit: Tony Comstock gives his view on the issue here.