I've been reading Steven Soderbergh's book, GETTING AWAY WITH IT or: THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF THE LUCKIEST BASTARD YOU EVER SAW and it's pretty inspiring. It's also kind of depressing to look at the struggles that he had to go through to get SCHIZOPOLIS and GRAY'S ANATOMY released. It's a good thing that I never even dreamed of getting distribution for this film, because if Soderbergh had trouble, we wouldn't have a chance.

9 SONGS NEWS: Looks like the film passed the British censors without a problem. That's good news. Maybe our US Ratings Board will loosen up a little? It doesn't matter for KOTM though, because I will never use my own money to have a film of mine rated. I think the MPAA is completely irrelevant and worthless.

Censors pass British sex film uncut

Winterbottom's 9 Songs, which shocked Cannes with its graphic scenes of unsimulated sex, receives an 18 rating with no cuts made

Staff and agencies
Tuesday October 19, 2004


The most sexually explicit film in UK cinema history has been passed uncut and granted an 18 certificate by the British board of film classification.

Michael Winterbottom's 9 Songs, which traces the arc of a relationship from first date to break-up, caused a furore at its premiere at Cannes earlier this year as it consists almost entirely of unsimulated sex scenes between its two stars, Kieran O'Brien and Margo Stilley.

In explaining its decision, the BBFC said that the sexual content was "exceptionally justified by context", but admitted audiences may find the scenes "shocking". The certificate comes with the advice that the film "contains frequent strong real sex".

The 70-minute movie will be previewed on Valentine's Day next year, before a nationwide release. Optimum Releasing, its distributor, anticipates that the film will be screened by all Britain's major cinema chains.

OK, so I guess it's time to update everyone on what's been happening over the past few months. I took a break from the film because I needed some distance before I went back in to make the final edits. I showed the first cut to a lot of people and tried to soak in as much feedback as possible. Once I felt like I had taken that step back that I needed, I sat down at the computer again and spent a few nights making the changes that I felt needed to be made. It was fun to work with the material again, and I am quite happy with what we have now. It's not completely finished, because I still need to do the titles and the final sound mix, but I'm very comfortable with the cut.

I've been really excited about the reaction from most people. There are definitely people who aren't digging what we are doing, but I'm overwhelmed by the people who really like the film and want to help us out. There have been some really amazing people who have stepped up and done us some favors to try and get this film some exposure.

I have started the process of trying to get the film into some festivals. I'm not going to talk much about this because I don't want to jinx us. If it happens it happens, but I'm not getting my hopes up. We are all really excited about the possibility of showing the film to festival audiences, and we'll just have to wait and see what happens.

Kris and I are sort of preparing for the long haul. My friend said that they spent an entire year doing festivals. Even if we don't get into festivals, I think we are planning to try and take the film to Universities and other film organizations all over the country and see if we can gain some interest before we put it on DVD.

I'm currently trying to arrange a screening in Carbondale for sometime in November, just to get a general response from a college age audience. We screened a 30 minute cut in April, and people liked it, but the final cut is quite a bit different and I'm not sure people will have the same response. I want to make sure it's advertised and people other than just film students show up, so I need to start working on that soon.

That's a general summary of what's going on with the film. Hopefully we hear some good news from some festivals before the end of the year, but the next few months will most likely be spent waiting for the phone to ring.