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dwk wrote: Sat Jan 19, 2019 4:04 pmI can only imagine the publicity difference between getting in trouble because of a few shots of a cockfight and beause of including a scene featuring a nude child that the BBFC deemed illegal.

Duh ! I didn't thought about the possible legal differences between the Animal Act and what covers children nudity in movies in the UK.

I remember when In the Realm of the Senses was still banned in the UK, it was on an official banned list at UK Customs for importation. So you'd be in trouble legally for importing that for home use in a way you wouldn't be for Cannibal Holocaust.

That scene from Brass Eye (very NSFW!) cannot help but come to mind!

Can you imagine finding yourself in the slammer having innocently imported a trashy 70s kung fu flick? Scary!

tenia wrote:

dwk wrote: Sat Jan 19, 2019 4:04 pmI can only imagine the publicity difference between getting in trouble because of a few shots of a cockfight and beause of including a scene featuring a nude child that the BBFC deemed illegal.

Duh ! I didn't thought about the possible legal differences between the Animal Act and what covers children nudity in movies in the UK.

An absolutely crucial legal difference concerns whether or not possession of this material is legal. The 1937 Cinematograph Films (Animals) Act does not make it illegal to own footage featuring genuine animal cruelty, but the 1978 Protection of Children Act and the 2008 Criminal Justice and Immigration Act make it explicitly illegal even to possess footage of actual child sexual abuse (which encompasses all sexual activity involving children, as they cannot legally consent) or “extreme pornography” such as bestiality.

Stupid question, but how is it To the Devil A Daughter still gets uncut in the UK? I'd have thought the 1978 act would effect it the same way Night Hair Child had to be censored after-the-fact.

I haven’t seen it, so can’t comment on specifics. I assume the issue is simple nudity rather than anything else.

MichaelB wrote: Tue Jan 22, 2019 7:33 am

tenia wrote:

dwk wrote: Sat Jan 19, 2019 4:04 pmI can only imagine the publicity difference between getting in trouble because of a few shots of a cockfight and beause of including a scene featuring a nude child that the BBFC deemed illegal.

Duh ! I didn't thought about the possible legal differences between the Animal Act and what covers children nudity in movies in the UK.

An absolutely crucial legal difference concerns whether or not possession of this material is legal. The 1937 Cinematograph Films (Animals) Act does not make it illegal to own footage featuring genuine animal cruelty, but the 1978 Protection of Children Act and the 2008 Criminal Justice and Immigration Act make it explicitly illegal even to possess footage of actual child sexual abuse (which encompasses all sexual activity involving children, as they cannot legally consent) or “extreme pornography” such as bestiality.

I remembered afterwards this kind of discussion from when Arrow conceived thier Boro set and there were similar questions regarding bestiality, and the legal difference between distribution and possession.

tenia wrote: Tue Jan 22, 2019 9:21 amI remembered afterwards this kind of discussion from when Arrow conceived thier Boro set and there were similar questions regarding bestiality, and the legal difference between distribution and possession.

Indeed. And with that particular footage, I couldn't even submit it to the BBFC without breaking the law, as the mere fact that I contacted them in advance to flag up the problem meant that I'd revealed that I knew what was in the footage, so I wouldn't be able to plead innocence later - unlike, for instance, the people who originally scanned the neg at Deluxe.

(And what happened there when they found out was that they refused to allow the master to leave the building until the illegal material had been blacked out, while the neg was immediately shipped back to France - in other words, any jury would have to agree that they'd behaved perfectly appropriately when faced with an unexpected legally problematic situation.)

It was a really bizarre situation because I didn't have a copy of the unexpurgated version myself, just a detailed description of the six potentially contentious shots, which I forwarded on to the BBFC's Craig Lapper (who was inordinately helpful throughout this process), so he was able to advise me that while the middle four shots of the woman clearly being fucked for real by the dog were unambiguously illegal, the first (the dog approaching the woman) was almost certainly OK, while the sixth (the woman towelling herself vigorously between her legs with the dog still looking visibly, erm, interested - but, crucially, not touching the woman any more) would probably be OK and there was enough of a grey area to make it likely that there wouldn't be a legal problem with submitting it. (In the event, they passed that shot as well.)

Although in the context of the Borowczyk box as a whole, it was quite a useful exercise because it established to the BBFC beyond any doubt that we were being serious and responsible about potentially problematic material - and in the event they waved everything else through (which was by no means a given, as some of this stuff had been banned outright in the past).

I wonder why in the UK the age of consent for intercourse is different from the making of images. So Love Letters of a Portugese Nun is illegal as Susan Hemmingway was 16 when she made the film - old enough to have sex in Britain but not to be photographed.

Mind you, sounds like what we have in Sister Street Fighter 2 would have been illegal anywhere, anytime!

Just a truly random guess, but either age of consent and photographes laws have been created in different eras, or it is considered ok for young people to have sex but problematic regarding child pornography to have pictures of people that young having sex.
Ie it's ok to be 16 and have sex but pictures of it might attract pervs.

I imagine the issue was addressed in the relevant Parliamentary debate, a transcript of which should be available online via Hansard.