Cinematical

Chinese filmmaker Lou Ye did a bad, bad thing. He showed his movie Summer Palace at Cannes earlier this year, and he did so without permission from the Chinese government. Now the director is not permitted to make another film in his home country for five years. Sure, for some filmmakers (like Terrence Malick and the late Stanley Kubrick, were he alive), this wouldn't be that horrible a punishment, except that the whole consequence part includes the government's confiscation of the film and seizing of any income it has generated. Lou Ye has already been the victim of a filmmaking ban; he made Suzhou River without the authorization to do so in 2000 and then couldn't make another film for two years. The producer of Summer Palace, An Nai, has also been put on a five-year suspension.

Summer Palace is a sexually explicit film set in 1989 amidst that year's pro-democracy demonstrations, which ended with the infamous Tiananmen Square massacre. And, according to Lou, it is somewhat autobiographical. Now, while you may be happy to not be living in a communist country, like Lou Ye, surely there are some directors out there that you wish could be given such a ban. My pick: Shawn Levy.

[via Fark.com]