Name: Borat Banned in Russia and Elsewhere

Date:  2006-present

Location:  Russia and Central Asia

Subject:  Racial/Ethnic , Religious , Political/Economic/Social Opinion

Medium:  Film Video

Artist: Sacha Baron Cohen, the film's director and 20th Century Fox, the distributor.

Confronting Bodies: The Federal Culture and Cinematography Agency, which certifies films for public distribution.

Date of Action: November, 2006

Specific Location: Russia

Description of Artwork: ﾓBoratﾔ is a satire of an imaginary Kazakhstan and a much more real U.S., which includes crude language and behavior, like naked men wrestling. It depicts its hero ﾗ who, while not explicitly Muslim, is from a country with a large Sunni Muslim population ﾗ as deeply backward, deeply prejudiced and deeply foolish.



Description of Incident:  The Federal Culture and Cinematography Agency, which certifies films for public distribution, declined to do so for ﾓBorat,ﾔ blocking it from the countryﾒs movie theaters only weeks before it was to open on Nov. 30, 2006.

An agency official, Yury V. Vasyuchkov, cited the filmﾒs potential to offend religious and ethnic feelings in a country where such feelings have been strained in recent months by ethnically tinged political conflicts and even violence.

The agencyﾒs decision amounted to the first such restriction on a filmﾒs public distribution ﾗ pornography aside ﾗ since the Soviet system of censorship collapsed in the late 1980s. In doing so, Russia has gone further even than Kazakhstan, the country that bears the brunt of Baron Cohenﾒs mock documentary.



Results of Incident: The film remains banned in Russia (the distributor is not appealing the FCCA decision) as well as in several predominantly Muslim countries including Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman and Qatar.



Source: The New York Times

Submitted By: NCAC

 







	


FileRoom Search  |  
Table of Contents  |  
Category Homepage  |
NCAC