It looks like Russian viewers who were hoping to experience screen legends Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci's latest gay drama Supernova are losing out, because the film is, unfortunately, the latest victim of antigay censorship.
According to a report from The Moscow Times, an intimate scene from the film was cut out by Supernova's Russian distributor World Pictures because of the country's infamous "gay propaganda" law, which prohibits LGBTQ+ visibility in venues accessible to minors. It also warned critics not to use "gay" in film reviews.
Now, the film's director Harry Macqueen, is breaking his silence in regards to the censorship.
"We the filmmakers object in the strongest possible terms to the censorship of Supernova in Russia," Macqueen said in a statement to PRIDE's sister publication The Advocate.
He continued:
"It is deeply troubling that the film has been edited without our permission and against our will. We want the film to be shown in its original, unedited form everywhere around the world. While we recognize the pressure the Russian distributors have been put under, we will not tolerate censorship of this nature."
"We as a team stand in solidarity with LGBTQ+ communities all over the world, and have expressed our deep concerns to the Russian distributor."
This isn't the first time recently that the makers of a beloved queer-inclusive movie had to weigh-in after being subjected to censorship.
Just last year, Ammonite filmmaker Francis Lee had to publicly clap back at Amazon Prime Video after reports of alleged censorship of his critically-acclaimed 2017 gay romance God's Own Country began to surface and make their way across the web.
"Dear friends in USA, God’s Own Country appears to have been censored on @PrimeVideo (Amazon Prime)," Lee said in a statement on his Twitter account at the time. "Until this is investigated please do not rent or buy on Amazon Prime. It is not the film I intended or made."
What makes Supernova's censorship painful is that the film isn't even very sexualized, and its major themes or grief and coping are far more featured than anything sexual or intimate.
"Any role you do, you just want to do it well. You want to be truthful, and you don't ever want it to be a sort of send-up or a mockery or anything like that," Tucci told PRIDE earlier this year when asked about what drew him to the film and about the progress that has been made when it comes to on-screen LGBTQ+ representation. "I think the thing that attracted me to the film was the beautiful script, and Harry's realization on paper of a beautiful, loving relationship. Now, the story could have been told with a heterosexual relationship, but what I loved about this was that sexuality was of no consequence. There was only love that was of consequence, and that is profound. Then loss is of consequence. And what I think the movie shows is that it makes great strides in the way that everybody thinks about love, which is it's just love, it doesn't matter who it is, who it's between. Gay, straight, whatever. Our sorrows are the same, and our pain is the same as well. So, in this tiny little film, I think Harry sends a pretty big message."
