The BBC in Northern Ireland reported on a clergyman who imported a DVD of an "illegal" film, and the description of it sounded a lot like this movie. So, if your in the UK, don't import it!
Call Me Jack. Union Jack.
There was recently a story of a priest near me who saw some youths vandalising his church so he took some photos of them then showed it to the police. The police then told him off for taking pictures of minors so maybe they're a bit more cautious of the clergy. If it was this film, however, that's a real pity cause I live in Northern Ireland and have a large collection of dvd's of all manners of extreme cinema and would like to get seeing this before they send out the troops to destroy every last remaining copy.
share[deleted]
Yes it's true; I was the clergyman who was seized; i had the dvd in my hand. The cops chased me around the church and caught me by the organ.
share[deleted]
All joking aside, however, a man WAS prosecuted, as recently as 2010, in the Netherlands, for possessing this film.
I think it would be considered criminal in MOST areas of the world.
Prosecuted. I'm not surprised, there's always some overzealos people who'd want to prosecute everything.
The important part is: Was the man declared guilty or not guilty?
That would tell you if the movie is criminal to own.
It`s far easier to start a war than to end one.
He was found guilty of possessing child pornography, yes.
However, his claim was never to defend the film, but to presumably feign ignorance of its content. He claimed to be a collector of rare, obscure, odd, controversial European films of the 1970s, and was said to collect them in large volume. He was going through an ugly break-up with his wife (for reasons not disclosed), and she was aware he possessed a copy of this film. She reported him to the authorities. When they came and seized this film, they found it to be in violation of the law there, and arrested him. He claimed to have not ever watched the film, or to have had any knowledge of its content (apparently, at one point, claiming to be "shocked" when he learned of the film's content). He bonded from jail, but was then later tried in a court there.
Out of all of his massive collection of old films, this was the only one thought to contain this type of material. Therefore, the judge decided to believe that the man was not a pedophile or dangerous person, and accepted the man's story at face value that he didn't know what he had.
The judge declared, in open court, that the film was indeed vile, and violated laws in the Netherlands regarding child pornography. He officially declared it child porn in the court documents. He, however, decided to find the man inadvertently guilty and remorseful, so while finding him guilty of possession of child pornography, he gave him the minimal sentence possible, which amounted to basically fines, costs, and some form of probation. The sentence was accepted, not appealed, and therefore until someone challenges it in the future, there is a court precedent currently on the books and records in the Netherlands, wherein this film was adjudged to be illegal.
It has also been officially banned by the government in Austria, the only place that it has ever been made commercially available on DVD (now it is illegal there). It is now a criminal offense to own it there.
In the USA, it would in all likelihood be declared child porn in court, as it is VERY conservative in the USA about such matters. And here, if you were found guilty of possessing child porn, a federal offense in the States, you would NOT see probation or fines, you would see serious jail time, and you would become a registered sexual offender, which would effectively ruin your life here.