Irish Film Censors at IFCO

The Irish film censor (IFCO) has banned the DVD re-release of the 1978 horror film I Spit on Your Grave starring Camille Keaton.

UK fans of the infamous cult film will be able to purchase the ultimate collector's edition on DVD and Blu-ray albeit cut by the BBFC. However Irish fans of the cult video nasty will be prohibited from purchasing locally, forcing them to import UK versions from internet retailers.

The decision to ban the DVD re-release of the cult classic film was due to the film depicting acts of gross violence and cruelty (including mutilation and torture) towards humans.

Director Meir Zarchi commented on the ban: It doesn't surprise me that Ireland have decided to ban the film. It has relentlessly continued to shock and offend audiences since 1978 when it was first released, and it still does to this date. However, with the level of graphic violence and horror available these days, it's surprising that IFCO sees this 1978 film more offensive than some of the most daring and empty of content torture porn available today.

Since the birth of the Internet all censor boards around the world have instantly become irrelevant. IFCO included. Anyone anywhere in the universe can simply push a button on any video website store and order a disc of I Spit On Your Grave. There are no iron curtains in the skies that can stop it from landing at his or her door.

Are we going through the Lady Chatterley's Lover syndrome all over again? The bottom line - thank you IFCO for promoting the film in Ireland.

The Original Cult Video Nasty is available today on UK DVD and Blu-ray as an ultimate collector's edition dual format - still cut but less so than previous releases.

He's seen nearly 2,000 films personally and supervised the watching of 55,000 others, yet the film censor John Kelleher only banned one film.

Kelleher, the director of the Irish Film Classification Office (IFCO), has stepped down just short of his 65th birthday.

He was appointed censor over six years ago. Shortly after taking office, he banned the film Spun on the basis that it showed an unacceptable level of gratuitous violence and obscenity , but that decision was overturned on appeal.

He also banned Manhunt 2 a violent video game, the only one of 8,000 video games banned by his office.

I don't believe in film censoring for adults, I believe in film classification for minors. I hope that people realised that I was trying to ensure that adults could look after themselves, that it was the welfare of children which was paramount, he said. [ ...BUT... this freedom for adults somehow didn't extend to hardcore porn].

His successor has not yet been appointed and IFCO will be headed up in the meantime by his deputy Ger Connelly.

The best film he saw, he says, was The Lives of Others ( Das Leben der Anderen ); worst were the series of Saw horror movies. I personally hate the extreme violence of the Saw franchise and the horror film Hostel , but I think younger people see it as an illusion that is created to scare, he said.

Irish cinemagoers aged 16 and over may see the violent new US action film Watchmen following a decision by the Film Appeals Board.

John Kelleher, director of the Irish Film Classification Office (Ifco), had given the film an 18 certificate – in tandem with a similar classification in the UK.

However, a more lenient rating has since been granted following an appeal by the film's distributor, Paramount Pictures. The film goes on release in Ireland, Britain and the US on March 6th.

Kelleher's office advises viewers on its website  that Watchmen contains strong, visceral hyper-realistic violence, including one brutal sexual assault.

We are delighted that Watchmen has been classified as 16, said Niamh McCaul, general manager of Paramount's Irish office. It increases our potential audience and more importantly will give access to fans that are 16 and over.

BBFC explain their uncut 18 rating for the film

From bbfc.co.uk

Watchmen is the latest film from director Zack Snyder and the team behind 300. Based on a famous graphic novel from the 1980s it tells the story of an alternate America in which the Vietnam War was won, Nixon was elected for a third term and costumed superheroes are part of the fabric of society. It was passed ‘18' for strong bloody violence.

The BBFC Guidelines at ‘15' state that ‘violence may be strong but may not dwell on the infliction of pain or injury'. In Watchmen however there are a number of scenes that focus on strong detailed violence and its gory result. In one such example, a man is stabbed through the arm, with it forcefully twisted and broken as the knife is shown penetrating his arm and emerging from the other side. In another, a man is shown being struck in the head with a meat cleaver followed by repeated bloody sight of the cleaver striking the head. Both of these scenes, in addition to one or two others, were considered inappropriate at ‘15' and better placed at the adult ‘18' where detail of strong violence is permitted.

Watchmen also contains an attempted rape scene, strong language and sexual activity without strong detail.

Irish video rental stores and other outlets face fines for supplying children with DVDs classified for older viewers.

Legislation makes it an offence for the first time to breach film classification certificates in over-the- counter rentals and sales and offenders can be fined up to €2,000 or even jailed for three years.

It means younger DVD library members may be asked to provide proof of their age if they try to rent a film with an age specific rating such as 12A, 15A, 16 or 18 and could be refused certain films even if they have parental permission to view it at home.

The laws also make changes to the Film Censor's Office which is now called the Irish Film Classification Office and no longer has powers to ban a film outright [A bit hard to believe! Somebody should try resubmitting Manhunt 2 to test this out].

Censor John Kelleher, who becomes director of film classification, welcomed the move, which he said reflected the profound changes in Ireland's recent past. We have moved far away from the nanny state moral guardian censorship of yesteryear towards an acceptance of the general principle that, in a mature society, adults should be free, subject to the law, to make their own choices.

Today, we don't censor, we classify. We don't decline to explain or justify our decisions. Rather, we welcome the fact that we can provide the public, and parents, with age-related classification and consumer advice. We have gone from stop sign to signpost.

The censor still has a role in protecting under-18s, however, and his powers in that area have been strengthened with specific reference in the law to his duty to apply restrictive classifications where a film is likely to cause harm to children.

Much of the existing law, the 85-year-old Censorship of Film Act of 1923, survives and the censor still has to take into consideration scenes that render a film indecent, obscene or blasphemous or would tend to inculcate principles contrary to public morality.

As part of the changes, a scale of fees is being introduced to ease the cost of applying for classification for independent film makers, foreign movie distributors and art house films that get a very limited cinema release. Instead of paying €12 per minute of film for every copy distributed to a cinema, they will pay €3.