Luca Guadagnino on ‘Queer’s’ Ban in Turkey

While at the jury press conference at Marrakech Film Festival, Luca Guadagnino said on Saturday that he’ll be “happy” if people download “Queer” in Turkey where the movie, starring Daniel Craig as a gay American expat in 1950s Mexico City, was banned by authorities who deemed it “too provocative.”

“They banned the movie because they said the movie was creating social disorder,” Guadagnino said. “I wonder if they’ve seen the movie or if they are just judging it by the outline or let’s say the facetious stupidity of some journalism focusing on James Bond going gay.”

He rejoiced about the fact “Queer” is an “object that shutters our house of values in a way that is so powerful” and hopes that the “form of the movie brings the possibility of societal collapse.

“I am scandalized by cinema. I am shocked by it, that I’m going to fight the institution who wants to tarnish its inevitable powers,” said Guadagnino prompting the room to erupt in applause.

Guadagnino, who is presiding over the Marrakech Film Festival Jury, argued the censorship doesn’t prevent people from seeing the movie because they “can find things” by themselves. “You can download the movie. I mean, if someone in Turkey downloads the movie, I’m happy.”

Speaking more largely about his aspiration as a filmmaker, he said, “We have only one enemy, which is industrial taste.”

“That is the enemy that we have to fight fiercely against, which is the idea of cinema being slotted within parameters that are given by a sort of invisible law. That is the idea how cinema has to be made to work as an industrial piece,” Guadagnino continued.

Ali Abbasi, whose Donald Trump movie “The Apprentice” has been plagued with controversy, talked about how crucial it is for filmmakers to address audiences who may not share their world views. The Iranian-Danish director, who is sitting on the Marrakech jury with…