Blue Artichoke Films is proud to announce that our erotic drama Matinée has just won the jury prize for Best Short Film at the Melbourne Underground Film Festival 2009 — despite the film’s controversial ban from the festival by the Australian government!
As you probably read in our last News post: Last week, the August 26 scheduled screening of Matinée at MUFF was halted at the last minute due to notification by the OFLC (Australia’s Office of Film and Literature Classification) that Matinée was the only unrated film which the OFLC would not allow MUFF to screen. The OFLC cited “sexual content” as the reason. Presumably, this is because Matinée includes an erotic, explicit sex scene between the film’s two main characters, Mariah and Daniel.
Though MUFF had seriously considered defying the ban and holding a “civil disobedience” screening, the press attention surrounding the ban proved too great to be able to safely screen the film. Moments before the screening, Matin?e was removed from the lineup. However, despite the fact that Matinée remains unseen by MUFF’s festivalgoers, the official jury of the festival decided that the film warranted the prize for Best Short Film. We’re touched and grateful.
Blue Artichoke Films is proud to add MUFF’s award to its list of honors. Recently Matinée won the CineKink/NYC film festival’s jury award for Best Short Narrative Film, and won Honorable Mention at the 2009 Feminist Porn Awards. It was also selected for the #4 spot in Cosmopolitan magazine’s 5 Best Sex Films For Women (German edition, July 2009) and has been featured in top-ranking Dutch magazines and television programs, including a variety of feminist and women’s magazines.
We send out our gratitude to the Melbourne Underground Film Festival for inviting us, to director Richard Wolstencroft and the rest of the MUFF team for valiantly defending us in the press and to the OFLC, and of course…to the jury!
Please help us spread the good news.
More info:
- PDF download: Blue Artichoke Films press release MUFF award 9-1-09
- MUFF 2009 winners
- (If you’re from the press, just contact us for high-resolution photos.)