Director of banned sex film urges Philippine president to see movie

Arroyo, a devout Roman Catholic, disallowed the showing of "Live Show" after Church leaders and other anti-pornography groups opposed the movie about men and women who perform live sex acts on the stage in nightclubs.

Presidential Chief of Staff Renato Corona said Arroyo had not seen the film, but asked aides to review it. The aides said the movie, which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival last year, had graphic sex scenes.

"I wish she saw the movie first so that she could have made a balanced decision," said Jose Javier Reyes, the film's director and chairman of the Directors Guild of the Philippines. "It cannot possibly be pornographic."

The controversy over Live Show has forced the country's top movie censor to quit on Wednesday, citing "religious bigotry".

It has also raised questions on the Church's influence on Arroyo, who was swept into power by a military-backed mass uprising that ousted former president Joseph Estrada on January 20. The Catholic Church played a key role in the "people power" revolt.

Reyes said if Arroyo had seen Live Show, she would have realised that the film was about "the humiliation of people who are forced to go into this kind of work out of poverty" and the aspirations of such workers to improve their lives.

He criticised Manila Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin for pressuring Arroyo to censor the film, saying, "We artists merely reflect what we see. We have different methods with the Church, but we all want the same good things for the country."

The Philippines is Asia's only predominantly Roman Catholic country.

While Catholic Church leaders oppose the film's showing, a movie review board of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines said Live Show was fit for viewing by "mature" audience at least 18 years old.

The Catholic Initiative for Enlightened Movie Appreciation (CINEMA) did not criticise the movie's sex scenes, but lamented that Live Show had a "defeatist outlook".

"The worst thing about it is it attempts in less than 100 minutes to call the viewer's attention to more social ills than anyone can handle in a lifetime: prostitution, white slavery, pornography, paedophilia, child labour, drug abuse, police brutality and sexual perversion," CINEMA said in a March 9 review.

In the past, the country's movie censor board has been ridiculed for giving "X" ratings to such acclaimed films as "Schindler's List" and "The Piano". The bans were subsequently overturned by then president Fidel Ramos, a protestant.

(dpa)