A feature film that includes explicit scenes of gay male sex has been banned by the Classification Board. I Want Your Love, written and directed by young American filmmaker Travis Mathews, was due to screen at queer film festivals around Australia.

Mathews recently collaborated with actor James Franco on Interior: Leather Bar, an official selection at Sundance this year. It was a re-engagement with the controversial 1980 Hollywood movie Cruising, which starred Al Pacino.

Too sexually explicit: Gay film I Want Your Love has been banned from screening at film festivals in Australia by the Classification Board.

Festival films are granted exemptions from the classification process. Festivals provide synopses of the works they are screening; the board can then ask to see individual films.

Melbourne Queer Film Festival director Lisa Daniel says that in her 15 years at the festival, I Want Your Love is the first film that has been refused an exemption. It has been seen in many festivals around the world, and its distributors have told her this is the first time it has been banned. Mathews is a well-known filmmaker, and the decision is an embarrassment for Australia, she says.