Guardian: Rethink over Christ 'porn' film ban

(Ed: Note, the producer has been invited to resubmit his film. Big question: WHY? The answer given in the article: "A board spokeswoman stressed the invitation to Wingrove to resubmit his film for classification was [Craig, head of the British Board of Film Classification's examining body] Lapper's personal decision. 'Craig was being helpful,' the spokeswoman said ..." Yeah, right.)

A landmark decision to ban a film showing Christ being caressed on the cross on the grounds that it was blasphemous could be reversed after almost 20 years.

The 1989 ruling by the British Board of Film Classification to refuse a release licence for Visions of Ecstasy, a low- budget film depicting the 16th-century Spanish mystic St Teresa of Avila caressing the body of Jesus on the cross provoked a national furore.

While the film's director, Nigel Wingrove, believed he was making art, the board, under its heavily censorious director James Ferman, took a different view and said its mix of pornography and religion risked upsetting the Anglican Church. Now, however, in a sign that Britain's social mores have moved on, Craig Lapper, of the board's examining body, has invited Wingrove to resubmit the film for classification. Read more

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