Istanbul bans ‘Queer’, Mubi cancels International Film Festival

The British arthouse film platform Mubi has announced its decision to cancel the Istanbul International Film Festival following the censorship in the country of Luca Guadagnino’s film ‘Queer’. The ban on the film was triggered by the fact that the plot of the film by the Italian director, whose protagonist is the English actor Daniel Craig, deals with themes related to the LGBT+ world.

“A few hours before the start of the festival we were informed by the prefecture of Kadikoy (district of Istanbul, ed.) that the screening had been blocked. We were notified that the contents of the film are provocative and likely to undermine social peace. We therefore decided to cancel the entire event in the face of this act of censorship, a violation of freedom of expression in Turkey”, reads a statement issued by the well-known platform, whose main office is located in London.

Queer is a film inspired by an autobiographical story by the American poet William Burroughs. The protagonist, who received an 11-minute ovation at the Venice film festival, is Daniel Craig who plays an American drifter who falls in love with a former Marine officer on leave. It is not the first time that censorship in Türkiye has affected issues related to the LGBT+ world. Last February, another festival promoted by LGBTQ+ platforms, KuirFest, was banned in the capital Ankara. Turkish prefectures apply censorship on the basis of an alleged risk of clashes and explosion of violence by anti-LGBTQ and ultranationalist groups. Mubi was founded by Turkish entrepreneur Efe Cakarel and currently has 15 million subscribers in 190 countries.