Nymphomaniac Posters Main Image - H 2013
Romania has reversed an earlier ban on Lars von Trier‘s Nymphomaniac, Vol. 2 and will allow the second half of the Danish director’s sex epic to be released as planned in the country Feb. 7. Romania’s film commission, the CNC, had initially slapped an “18 XXX” rating on the film, essentially labeling it pornographic and making it illegal for the movie to be released theatrically in the country.
The film’s Romanian distributor, Independen?a Film, appealed the decision and the commission backed down, changing the rating to “18 plus,” the same as it gave Nymphomaniac Vol.1, which bowed in Romania earlier this month. The president of the ratings commission was dismissed from his position, although he will stay on as a regular board member.
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“The ratings commission, under pressure (political, social and international), finally had to (go) back on its decision and has authorized the film,” said Independen?a Film managing director Antoine Bagnaninchi to THR in an email following the ruling. “Great publicity for us and the film but very bad for the image of Romania outside (the country)!”
The CNC did not give any reason for their reversal, or for the original XXX rating.
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News of the ban lit up social media both in and outside Romania. Nymphomaniac has already gone out in several territories in Europe, receiving cinema ratings ranging from “12 plus” to “18 and over.”
The two-part film stars Charlotte Gainsbourg as a self-diagnosed nymphomaniac telling her erotic life story to a celibate man, played by Stellan Skarsgard. Stacy Martin, Shia LaBeouf, Christian Slater, Willem Dafoe and Uma Thurman also star. Both halves of Nymphomaniac bowed in von Trier’s home country of Denmark on Christmas Day. Von Trier will deliver two even more explicit directors’ cuts of Nymphomaniac Vol.1 and Vol.2, with the first to screen at the Berlin Film Festival on Feb. 10.
