An Open Letter to Paul Kalina of the Age Concerning Film Censorship in Australia

Dear Paul,

I’ve just read your article in The Age asserting that L.A. Zombie is the first film banned from the Australian festival cirucut since Ken Park in 2003.

This is incorrect

In 2006 the OFLC banned my documentary film Damon and Hunter: Doing it Together from playing at the Sydney QueerDoc International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival.

In 2007 the OFLC banned my film Ashley and Kisha: Finding the Right Fit from the Melbourne Underground Film Festival, along with six other films: 70k Schulmädchen-Report: Was Eltern nicht für möglich halten (aka The Schoolgirl Report), Sex Wish, The Farmer’s Daughter, Whore, and 60 Second Relief

In 2009 the OFLC banned Jennifer Lyon Bell’s Matinee from the Melbourne Underground Film Festival.

Perhaps if the Age would do a better job of informing the Australian public about their government’s censorship of films, it wouldn’t happen so often.

Yours,
Tony Comstock

(Cross posted to The Art & Business of Making Erotic Films)

UPDATE:

The original copy read like this:

“The festival is not generally required to submit films for classification, but after reading a synopsis of the plot of L.A. Zombie, which features wound penetration and implied sex with corpses, the Classification Board requested a DVD to watch, and then refused to issue an exemption. It is the first film to be banned from the festival circuit since Larry Clark’s Ken Park in 2003.”

Paul Kalina answers by e-mail:

The reference to LA Zombie as the first film banned since 2003 was intended to refer to the Melbourne Film Festival’s programming of Ken Park, and would probably be understood that way by local readers.

Now the reads like this:

“The festival is not generally required to submit films for classification, but after reading a synopsis of the plot of L.A. Zombie, which features wound penetration and implied sex with corpses, the Classification Board requested a DVD to watch, and then refused to issue an exemption. It is the first film to be banned from the Melbourne International Film Festival since Larry Clark’s Ken Park in 2003.”

Why doesn’t The Age think it’s worth mentioning that eight other films have been banned between Ken Park and L.A. Zombies? Who knows…