Four documentary films have been banned from the Singapore International Film Festival including two deemed sympathetic to terrorism, a third about gay Muslims and another with "explicit sado-masochistic sequences," censors said in a report on Saturday. ( dpa )
The festival kicked off Friday and includes films from 40 countries through April 14.
Arabs And Terrorism and David The Tolhildan were "disallowed on account of their sympathetic portrayal of organizations deemed terrorist organizations by many countries," Amy Chua, chairman of the Board of Film Censors, told The Straits Times.
The 135-minute Arabs And Terrorist, which was to have been shown on Saturday, includes interviews with US and Middle Eastern policymakers as well as academics and leaders of radical groups on their definition of terrorism.
Festival director Philip Cheah said he was informed Thursday that it was disallowed by the Media Development Authority, which overseas the censorship board. Tickets for the film had been told out.
David The Tolhildan, a 54-minute Kurdish film, focuses on a Swiss national joining the militant Kurdistan Workers' Party. Jihad For Love, an 81-minute documentary, is about a gay South African.
Bakushi is a 90-minute documentary on the practice of "rope-tying" in Japan.
"Bakushi contains prolonged sequences of rope masters tying up nude women and subjecting them to various degrees of physical abuse and sexual degradation for erotic gratification," Chua said. "The theme normalizes unnatural fetishes and behaviour."