Organizers cancel İstanbul film festival over ‘Queer’ ban

Organizers of an İstanbul film festival announced its cancellation Thursday to protest a local authority ban on the screening of “Queer,” starring former “James Bond” star Daniel Craig, Agence France-Presse reported.

The arthouse film streaming platform MUBI said it was cancelling the entire four-day festival just hours before it was set to open in Kadıköy on the Asian side of İstanbul.

“Hours before the start… we were told by the Kadıköy district authorities that the screening of ‘Queer’, the opening film, was banned… on grounds it contained provocative content that would disturb the peace,” it said.

The authorities said the ban would be “enforced for security reasons,” according to MUBI.

In the film, which was directed by Italy’s Luca Guadagnino and premiered at the Venice Film Festival last month, Craig sheds his 007 persona for the loneliness and anguish of a drug-addicted gay man.

A love story between two men based on a short novel by William S. Burroughs, it includes graphic sex scenes as it traces their emotional highs and lows.

MUBI denounced the ban as “restricting art and freedom of expression.”

“Festivals are breathing spaces that celebrate art and cultural diversity and bring people together. This ban affects not only a film but the meaning and purpose of the entire festival,” it said.

Although homosexuality is not a crime in Turkey, it is frowned upon by large swathes of society, with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan regularly referring to LGBTQ people as “perverts” and accusing them of posing a threat to traditional families.

In 2020, streaming giant Netflix cancelled production of a series in Turkey featuring a gay character after failing to obtain government permission for filming.

İstanbul’s annual Pride march has been banned every year on security grounds since 2015 and LGBTQ individuals say they face regular harassment and abuse.

London-based MUBI, a global arthouse movie streamer, producer and distributor, was set up in 2007 by Turkish entrepreneur Efe Çakarel.

It offers streaming services in more than 195 countries, its website says.