The streaming platform MUBI, organizer of a film festival in Istanbul, announced its cancellation in protest after local authorities banned the screening of the film Queerby Luca Guadagnino, with Daniel Craig in a gay role.
The new film of Luca Guadagnino — director among others of Call Me by Your Name — does not pass into Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The global platform for streaming art house films THE BADorganizer of a film festival in Istanbul, announced this Thursday, November 7, its cancellation after local authorities banned the screening of Queerin which the Italian director casts Daniel Craig in a gay role, who has played James Bond several times, arctic of the masculine man.
“A few hours before the opening, the Kadikoy district authorities informed us that the screening of Queerscheduled for the opening session, was prohibited on the grounds that it contained provocative content, likely to disturb public order,” explained the organizers a few hours before the opening of the festival in Kadikoy, a riverside district Asian from Istanbul. Authorities clarified that the ban was “decided for security reasons,” MUBI reported.
State homophobia hardens in Türkiye
The cancellation of the festival was therefore decided as a sign of protest against “an obstacle to creation and freedom of expression”, explains MUBI which holds the worldwide distribution rights to the film. “Festivals are breathing spaces that celebrate art and cultural diversity, and bring people together. This ban affects not only one film, but also the meaning and purpose of the entire festival.”
Presented in preview last month at the Venice Film Festival and at the opening of the image+nation festival on November 20, Queer is inspired by a novel by William S. Burroughs which mixes fiction and autobiography. Retracing the twists and turns of a romantic relationship between two men, the film of great aesthetic beauty contains explicit scenes of sexuality between men.
Remember that already in 2020, the giant Netflix canceled the production in Turkey of a series in which one of the main characters was gay, after failing to obtain filming authorization. Although homosexuality was decriminalized in 1858 in Türkiye, it remains a largely taboo subject and the Islamo-conservative president Recep Tayyip Erdogan regularly makes speeches fueling hatred towards LGBT+ people, accusing them of constituting a threat to traditional family values.
Since 2015, Istanbul Pride has been banned every year for security reasons, and LGBT+ people are regularly victims of harassment and attacks.
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