Australia bans award-winning Swedish film Children's Island over child porn concerns

The Classification Review Board's decision to refuse classification for Children's Island, handed down in October but not reported until now, has echoes of the 2008 controversy over Bill Henson's photographs of naked children.

Titled Barnens ö in Swedish, the arthouse film focuses on an 11-year old boy grappling with the onset of puberty and contains scenes in which the boy is naked. It won Sweden's most prestigious film prize, the Guldbagge, when it was released in 1980 and was Sweden's official selection for the 54th Academy Awards. The film was directed by Kay Pollak, who later won acclaim for his box office hit As it is in Heaven. [...] Anyone buying, selling or showing the film publicly will now face fines of up to $275,000 and a maximum 10 years' jail. [...]

Free-speech advocate Chris Berg, a research fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs, said: "It is a bizarre and rather extraordinary overreach by the AFP to go to the Classification Review Board to censor movies."

source: Article 'Australia bans award-winning Swedish film Children's Island over child porn concerns' by Matthew Knott; www.smh.com.au/entertainment/movies/australia-bans-awardwinning-swedish-film-childrens-island-over-child-porn-concerns-20140227-33lxx.html; The Sidney Morning Herarld; 27 February 2014