Luca Guadagnino to stand up to ‘Queer’ ban: “I’m going to fight”
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(Credits: Far Out / A24)
Director Luca Guadagnino has made it clear that he will be fighting against any festivals and countries that block the release of his latest film, Queer, imploring movie fans to rally against any institutions that attempt to “tarnish” the power of cinema.
The upcoming film Queer, starring Daniel Craig and Drew Starkey, is an adaptation of William S Burroughs’ 1985 novella of the same name. Set in Mexico City in the 1950s, it follows Craig as an outcast American expatriate who meets and becomes infatuated with a younger man, played by Starkey, in a star-making role.
However, as expected from a Burroughs text, the content of the story is explicit. The film has been rated R due to the nudity, sex scenes and heavy drug depictions. However, the banning of the film in certain countries is not down to these elements but due to homophobia.
According to Guadagnino, the labelling of the film as “too provocative” by authorities in Turkey is nothing more than blatant homophobia against the film’s story and subject matter. In response, the director has made it clear that he will be fighting against attempts to silence his movie.
First, after Turkey banned the film, MUBI cancelled their film festival in the country, standing in solidarity with the director. In a statement regarding the ban, MUBI said, “The decision states that the film is prohibited on the grounds that it contains provocative content that could endanger public peace, with the ban being imposed for security reasons. We believe this ban is a direct restriction on art and freedom of expression. Festivals are spaces that celebrate art, cultural diversity, and community, bringing people together. This ban not only targets a single film but also undermines the very essence and purpose of the festival.”
Guadagnino took his stance even further at the jury press conference at Marrakech Film Festival, where he defied what would typically be expected from a filmmaker as he said he would be happy if audiences downloaded the film in countries where Queer has been banned. He said, “You can download the movie. I mean, if someone in Turkey downloads the movie, I’m happy.”
“They banned the movie because they said the movie was creating social disorder,” he said. “I wonder if they’ve seen the movie or if they are just judging it by the outline or let’s say the facetious stupidity of some journalism focusing on James Bond going gay.”
However, looking on the bright side of things, the director sees this response to the film as proof of the power of cinema. He celebrates the fact that Queer is an “object that shatters our house of values in a way that is so powerful” and hopes that the “form of the movie brings the possibility of societal collapse.”
In a rousing speech, he said, “I am scandalized by cinema. I am shocked by it, that I’m going to fight the institution who wants to tarnish its inevitable powers.”
For Guadagnino, fighting against the restrictions placed on Queer is a fight against a bigger, darker problem of censorship affecting the cultural sphere. “We have only one enemy, which is industrial taste,” he said, explaining, “That is the enemy that we have to fight fiercely against, which is the idea of cinema being slotted within parameters that are given by a sort of invisible law. That is the idea how cinema has to be made to work as an industrial piece.” So to him, his rallying for people to seek out Queer wherever they can, either in cinemas or online, is an act of defiance against the bodies attempting to hide his work.
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