Starring: Jesse Metzger, Brontez Purnell, Ben Jasper, Keith McDonald, Jorge Rodolfo
Running Time: 71 mins
Certificate: 18
Release Date: June 28th 2013
Running Time: 71 mins
Certificate: 18
Release Date: June 28th 2013
I Want Your Love (Cinema/VoD)
James Franco Calls On Australian Censor To Overturn Ban Of LGBT-Film I Want Your Love
We reported last week that the notoriously ban-happy Australians censors have refused to give a permit for Travis Mathews’ I Want Your Love to screen at Aussie film festivals this year. While most previous bans had been handed down to films that mixed sex and violence or covered other contentious issues, I Want Your Love is an intimate film that merely happens to contain real, consensual, non-violent sex.
It wouldn’t have been the first time the Aussie censors allowed real sex in a movie, but as this was gay sex, it’s led some to claim the decision has homophobic.
Now James Franco has stepped into the debate. He worked with Mathews recently on Interior Leather Bar, and so Travis reached out to Franco about the ban, with the actor now making an appeal to overturn the ban in a Youtube video.
He says, “I don’t know why in this day and age something like this, a film that’s using sex not for titillation but to talk about being human, is being banned. It’s just embarrassing. I hope you’ll reconsider.”
As things stand, I Want Your Love is banned from screening at its planned showings at the Melbourne and Brisbane queer film festivals (although there is the possibility they’ll show the film anyway and risk a fine).
Take a look at Franco’s appeal above.
Australian Censor Bans Travis Mathew’s Gay-Themed Film I Want Your Love
Last year it seemed the notorious sex-phobic Australian censors were relaxing a bit after they permitted the documentary Donkey Love to screen uncut, despite the fact it featured footage of men having real sex with animals.
However they’ve now shown their true squeamishness by banning Travis Mathews’ movie I Want Your Love, which was due to screen at LGBT film festivals in Aus this year. The movie, based on Mathews’ acclaimed short, is about a young gay artist who negotiates the difficulties of having sex with his best friend, before he leaves Los Angeles to move back to Ohio.
As with the original short, the film features real sex, which is what’s prompted the Australian Classification Board to ban it. It’s certainly not the first time they’ve got upset about the sight of an erection, previously outlawing the likes of Larry Clark’s Ken Park, Bruce LaBruce’s LA Zombie (the Melbourne Underground Film Festival defied that ban and got a $750 fine), the French movie Baise-Moi and the controversial A Serbian Film.
Some have accused the censor of anti-gay bias, as the board has approved movies with real straight sex – as long as it’s not in connected to violence – but has outlawed quite a few movies with consensual, non-violent gay sex. Indeed just last year one of Mathews’ shorts, In Their Room: Berlin, was refused permission to screen at the Mardi Gras Film Festival.
As Mathews put it on I Want Your Love’s Facebook page, ‘But bigger than the film, this is about censorship, free speech and maybe a good dose of homophobia.’ There’s also a petition been started on Change.org to get the decision overturned.
If you’re wondering about the donkey sex, that was deemed okay as it depicted a folk tradition in parts of Colombia, where young men have sex with the animals in order to prepare themselves for the real thing. However we’d love to know if the Australian Classification Board would have passed it if the men had been having sex with male donkeys.
I Want Your Love should be released on DVD in the US and UK later this year.