Persian cats join Chinese gays as Cannes gets political

Friday, May 15, 2009 at 1:51 AM Posted by Beijing News


A torrid gay sex movie from China and a blistering denunciation of film and music censorship in Iran brought world politics centre-stage at the Cannes film festival on Thursday.

Both movies were shot in secret and brought to France without official home country approval and both directors wasted no words in slamming their countries' respective censors.

"I hope to be the last Chinese director ever to be banned," China's award-winning Lou Ye told AFP in an interview.

And Iran's Bahman Gohbadi, whose "No One Knows About Persian Cats" received a triumphant welcome Thursday, said he might not go back home after the festival because even if he is not offically banned he is not allowed to shoot.

"If I go back how can I make a movie? I'm sure they won't give me permission to film," he told AFP ahead of the evening screening, at which the director and his young Iranian cast were warmly applauded.

With controversy no stranger to Cannes, both movies screened on the first high-profile day of the race to scoop the festival's Palme d'Or award.

"Cannes," said festival director Thierry Fremaux, "aims to unveil world cinema as well as unveil what is happening across the world around us."

Lou is among some of the world's 20 hottest directors competing for the top prize from the globe's leading movie showcase, to be awarded May 24.

His "Spring Fever" is a two-hour tale of passion and seduction in twosomes and threesomes with lengthy graphic scenes of gay sex shot in just two months in Nanjing city with a hand-held camera, defying a ban on film-making.

"We were psychologically prepared to be stopped during the filming, but that never happened, and today here we are with the film and the cast, which after all is a good thing," he said.

The 44-year-old director is halfway through a five-year ban on film-making imposed by censors in 2006 after bringing his previous movie "Summer Palace" -- another steamy love tale set around the taboo subject of the 1989 pro-democracy Tiananmen protests -- to Cannes in 2006 without official approval.

Ghobadi's "No One Knows About Persian Cats" was selected by festival organisers as the opening film of its parallel section spotlighting fresh talent, "Un Certain Regard."

Filming without permission in Tehran, he was arrested twice and had to lie about the film, saying he was shooting a documentary on drugs.

The film-maker's girlfriend is the just-released US journalist Roxana Saberi, who has screenwriting and production credits on the film but did not travel to Cannes out of concern for her family in Iran, according to Ghobadi.

His movie is a no-holds-barred denunciation of screen and music censorship in Iran shot in secret in just 17 days with a largely non-professional cast on a shoestring. It was warmly received by critics at a preview screening.

Shot in dingy cellars, rooftop sheds and even in a country cow-barn, it unveils the existence of a vibrant Tehran underground music scene ranging from indie rock to Persian rap to heavy metal -- with rare images of daily urban life in the backdrop.

Ghobadi, director of auteur award-winners such as "Turtles Can Fly" and "A Time for Drunken Horses," said he had lived in fear of police during the shooting of the film.

Competition is expected to be specially stiff this year with contenders including four previous Palme winners -- Tarantino, Von Trier, Jane Campion, and Ken Loach.





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