BBFC director David Cooke has released a statement about all the fun films he's seen this week:
"It is the Board's policy that at the adult category the Guideline concerns will not normally override the principle that adults should be free to choose their own entertainment. However, there are cases where the Board will intervene, even at '18' [the most restrictive mainstream UK film rating, meaning no-one 18 years of age can be admitted], where material or treatment appears to the BBFC to pose a credible potential harm risk to individuals or, through their behaviour, to society, and in particular where portrayals of sexual or sexualised violence might eroticise or endorse sexual assault or where children are portrayed in a sexualised context.
The cuts to this version of I Spit on Your Grave, which the Board has required, remove elements that tend to eroticise sexual assault (for example, through the use of titillation), as well as other elements that tend to endorse sexual assault (for example, by encouraging viewer complicity by the use of camcorder footage, filmed by the rapists, during the various scenes of sexual assault). With these cuts made, the film's scenes of very strong terrorisation and sexual violence remain potentially shocking, distressing or offensive to some adult viewers, but are also likely to be found essentially repugnant and aversive. The Board takes the view that, with these cuts, they are not credibly likely to encourage imitation.
The cuts to A Serbian Film do not detract from the message of the film but remove the most problematic images of sexual and sexualised violence. The section in the Board's Guidelines which lists the possible grounRAB for compulsory cuts also includes material which portrays children in a sexualised or abusive context. Whilst the Board understanRAB that these images are intended to make a political point, that does not remove the genuine harm risks to which they give rise."
