Last month, upon a “recommendation” by the Catholic Media Center, the Directorate of General Security decided to ban Marc Abi Rached’s new film, “Help”. The reason given was “explicit” content in a scene of a threesome between a “prostitute”, a “homosexual”, and his partner, although the scene conforms to censorship laws and does not show sexual organs. With much candor and an open heart, Marc explained to Helem why he thinks his film was banned.

The movie’s title is “Help” because all the characters in the film need help: the straight, the gay, and the prostitute and everyone in society… It attempts to show both the negative and positive sides of the characters, to say that they are normal and as human as anyone else. Without judging; we all need help!

The film had already received a license for the script, meaning an official approval by the authorities. Afterwards, another approval was received to start shooting. Then, a third approval by the same authorities for local distribution in movie-theaters in Lebanon.

Following the first screening in Cinema Sofil and preparation for distribution, the crew was shocked that General Security withdrew all the above permissions, with no further information about the reasons why. From a legal perspective, General Security does not have the right to withdraw any license given, even if the person in charge was replaced, which could have been a reason behind stopping the movie as some people assume. Moreover, they did not give any justifications or any valid reason for why they stopped the movie, not even announcing the issue publicly.

Independent research by Samir Kassir Foundation connected the decision to religious influence over the government. They discovered that the Catholic Media Center (with close ties to the church), had a hand in the censorship. Other religious organizations could have also been involved following the publicity of the premiere.

Following the ban, “we did not focus on making public speeches about what is going on, but on articles and writers of newspapers to reach the public opinion,” Marc says. But, during a live interview on Tele Liban, and “after 20 minutes, we went on a commercial break, followed by the presenter saying they will have to cancel the show for ‘technical reasons’.” What had actually occurred, according to Marc, was that they got an order from ‘anonymous superiors’ to stop the episode immediately.

The contentious scene is a threesome “between the prostitute, the homosexual and his partner. It is a 7 minute scene with no sexual organs visible except breast; the rest is covered under the sheets,” Abi Rached explains. “It’s sad that they want to remove it, especially that the movie is rated 18+.”

He then explains the problem with the decision, “someone who is 18 years old has the right to own a gun, a driving license, to go to super night clubs [strip clubs], but cannot see a film with women’s breasts showing in one scene!!”

To make things worse, Abi Rached explains that the actors are being harassed. He explains that “some of us got threats from different conservative groups inside and outside Lebanon, threatening to kill us if we dared to show the movie.” The leading actress, Joana Endraous, had to flee to France for her own sake.

The above case is just a small segment of the sexual oppression and the lacks of freedom of expression in our societies contain and causing a severe lack of mental development to the nation. There are other issues and lives being oppressed, manipulated and lost in our society, supported by fundamentalism, capitalism and monarchy and the worst is that they’re protected by the law!

Joe...