‘Passages’ Director, Distributor React To Film’s NC-17 Rating By MPA, Plan To Release It Unrated And Uncut

Bruce Haring
·2 min read
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Filmmaker Ira Sachs has called the Motion Picture Association’s decision to give his film an NC-17 rating “a form of cultural censorship.”

In a conversation with the Los Angeles Times, Sachs said that the MPA rating “is quite dangerous, particularly in a culture which is already battling, in such extreme ways, the possibility of LGBT imagery to exist.”

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An NC-17 rating would limit the audience, as no one under 17 would be admitted. Certain theaters would also likely not carry it.

“We hunger for movies that are in any proximity to our own experience,” the director added. “To find a movie like this, which is then shut out, is, to me, depressing and reactionary.”

Distributor MUBI acquired the film out of Sundance. It backed Sachs’ sentiments, and said the film will be released unrated in New York and Los Angeles theaters on August 4, with a wider rollout to follow.

“MUBI submitted director Ira Sachs’ Passages to the MPA in anticipation of the theatrical release in the United States. We unexpectedly received an NC-17 rating, which may limit the film’s ability to play in some cinemas nationwide. We are deeply disappointed by the MPA’s decision and MUBI has officially rejected this NC-17 rating. MUBI remains committed to releasing Passages nationwide in its original version as the filmmaker intended, with our full backing, unrated and uncut.”

“It’s so 1950s that this still exists,” Sachs said of the MPA decision. “We’re talking about a board that is not visible, that doesn’t make its rules known, that exists in silence. We’re talking about a select group of people who have a certain bent, which seems anti-gay, anti-progress, anti-sex — a lot of things which I’m not.”

“There’s no untangling the film from what it is,” the filmmaker concuded. “It is a film that is very open about the place of sexual experience in our lives. And to shift that now would be to create a very different movie.”

Mubi has taken U.S., UK, Ireland and Latin America rights to the Ira Sachs-directed Passages, which made its world premiere in the Premieres section of this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

In its story, set in contemporary Paris, German filmmaker Tomas (Franz Rogowski) embraces his sexuality through a torrid love affair with a young woman named Agathe (Palme d’Or winner Adèle Exarchopoulos), an impulse that blurs the lines that define his relationship with his husband, Martin (Ben Whishaw).

When Martin begins an extramarital affair of his own, he successfully gains back his husband’s attention while simultaneously unearthing Tomas’ jealousy. Grappling with contradicting emotions, Tomas must either embrace the confines of his marriage or come to terms with the relationship having run its course.

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