Collective Shout win against A Serbian Film: Review Board reverses decision

Film depicting extreme sexual violence now banned

On September 14, Collective Shout made a submission to the Classification Review Board, calling for a review of the Classification Board’s April decision to grant the film an R18+ rating.

We described scenes of extreme sexual violence against a child and against women.

“A Serbian Film contains depictions of a man raping his five year old son; of a man beheading a woman while raping her and of an adolescent girl smilingly encouraging a man to hit a woman while the woman performs oral sex on him. The film clearly exceeds the classification guidelines for R18+ films and should have been Refused Classification.”

We also said it was beyond comprehension that such a film -which we hear is now doing the rounds of schools on USB sticks – could be approved for local video stores. Crikey website editor Luke Buckmaster described the film as “morally irredeemable”.

The Classification Review Board met yesterday and overturned the original ruling.

Naturally Accent films, the Australian distributor is not happy about the reversal, inferring on twitter that the decision was a denial of democratic freedom.

Apparently democratic freedom should allow images of child sexual assault and the torture and decapitation of women, available at your local DVD outlet.

While we do of course welcome the Review Board’s decision, we can’t help but ask: what was the Board thinking in to allow it to go through in the first place?

The Classification system is in need of an overhaul, as we’ve argued in two recent submissions, including this one to the current Australian Law Reform Commission review.