08.28
Director Srdjan Spasojevic’s porn-snuff frightener A Serbian Film has been pulled from U.K.’s 11th annual Film4 Frightfest due to its graphic and disturbing scenes of torture and newborn baby rape.
The decision was made by the film festival’s co-director Ian Jones after the British Board of Film Classification ruled that 49 individual cuts—adding up to four minutes of screen time—be made to the film to keep it within BBFC guidelines.
Said the BBFC:
The film-makers have stated that A Serbian Film is intended as an allegory about Serbia itself. The board recognises that the images are intended to shock, but the sexual and sexualised violence goes beyond what is acceptable under current BBFC guidelines [for an 18-certificate].
A Serbian Film follows a downtrodden ex-porn star trying to make ends meet for his family by taking on a role in a privately funded fetish video that involves acts both immoral and illegal. The film’s most controversial scenes include machete sex, eye-socket rape, torture, and the aforementioned newborn rape.
Film4 Frightfest was set to screen the film, but opted not to after the BBFC decision.
Said Jones:
FrightFest has decided not to show A Serbian Film in a heavily cut version because, as a festival with a global integrity, we think a film of this nature should be shown in its entirety as per the director’s intention.
Take a look at all the integrity (courtesy of Beyond Hollywood):
