Director Tsai Ming-liang (蔡明亮) says he won't release his award-winning film The Wayward Cloud in Taiwan if censors insist on cutting any of its sexually explicit scenes.
The film won a Silver Bear from the Berlin International Film Festival on Saturday for outstanding artistic contribution. The movie stars Lee Kang-sheng (李康生), who plays a porn film actor caught between his on-screen partner and his girlfriend, who is a musical star.
The movie, yet to be shown in Taiwan, includes oral sex, nudity and other sexually explicit scenes that might be considered obscene by some viewers.
Tsai said he sought to use the movie to explore the bewildering subject of the human body.
"It will not be shown unless in its totality," Tsai told television reporters after returning from Berlin on Monday night.
"Audiences are smart enough to tell if it is pornography. This film can jerk tears. Can a porn film have [that] effect?" he said.
Obscenity laws have been relaxed in recent years in response to a more open society, but movies are still banned from showing genitals, sexual intercourse or nudity unless such scenes can be justified as essential to the plot.
Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍), director-general of the Government Information Office, said the movie will be previewed by a panel of judges.
Lin promised to respect the director's art and not cut it unless absolutely necessary.
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