Censor scrubs graffiti film
Published 11 months ago in Making News.
A FILM showing Melbourne’s infamous 70K Crew graffiti gang hanging off trains and buildings has been pulled from a city film festival.
They’re brazen, forthright and absolutely convinced that scrawling their names on billboards and trains is going to change the world, experts say.
But the prolific 70K Crew are also criminals and the censors don’t want you to hear their story.
Melbourne Underground Film Festival pulled the documentary 70K on Sunday after the Federal Office of Film and Literature Classification warned the organisers that it was banned in Australia.
The film was shot by members of the gang, which includes the infamous duo Stan + Bonez and shows them hanging off trains and climbing buildings to paint their names.
In a report written last year the Classification Board, part of the OFLC, said the film glamorised and tried to legitimise vandalism:
“The combination of the filming, editing and addition of the soundtrack are such that the film is seen by the majority of the board to be a homage to the act of graffiti.'’
The board provided a copy of the report to the Leader but did not want to make any further comment.
But festival director Richard Wolstencroft said the ban was an attack on free speech.
“Snuff films and child pornography should be banned because they hurt people,'’ he said.
“(Graffiti) is a different kind of crime. No one is being murdered … it’s just a bit of paint on a wall.'’
Joel Birch, the spokesman for the film’s distributor, The Kingdom of Sad Machines, defended the film.
“It doesn’t glorify graffiti, it just documents it,'’ Mr Birch said.
Graffiti art curator and City Lights gallery founder Andy Mac said the 70K Crew would one day be seen as pioneering artists and the film as an important cultural history.
“On the surface, it looks like people writing their names but it’s actually a sustained act of civil disobedience,'’ Mr Mac said.
University of Melbourne culture expert Lachlan MacDowall said the ban was “authoritarian and paternalistic'’.
“I have seen the film and I don’t believe it warrants banning, although I think this is the case for almost all films in a democracy,'’ Mr MacDowall said.
- Lyndal Cairns
6 Responses to “Censor scrubs graffiti film”
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The comments of Andy Mac and Lachlan Macdowall just go to show what sort of moron inhabits our art and university culture. No wonder civil disobedience is at an all time high when such overpaid and underbrained idiots get in to positions of responsibility.
This is a bit exciting, getting a post from the ” crew”.
Long time no see.
The decision made was the correct one. Why dont these morons share some real art with us, rather than marking their territory with a spray can, Like a dog, peeing on a pole.
There is a belief that recognition of this film would encourage this anti-social behaviour to continue, which seems to be very near the truth. But this film is not dead, it will be seen elsewhere and Ambulance officers will continue to lift the lifeless corpses of someone’s son or daughter off the rail lines, or under a bridge. No, it is not murder it is paint on a wall but it encourages the young and moronic to try and write their tags in very dangerous places.
Monkey see, monkey do, Monkey dead…
(Flame on)
Violent brain dead trash that glorifies drug dealers, drug usage, gang mentality etc are happily paraded across our cinema and television screens daily, add to this the constant ad’s and video clips that sexually exploit women, the barrage of foul language that seems to be an acceptable part of most movies & tv shows. No one says boo about this stuff and the OFLC happily allows this crap onto our screen because it usually comes from major corporations in America, and we mustn’t upset the yanks or interefere with the almighty dollar.
But a documentary about grafitti artist well heaven forbid you can’t have an abomination like that, next thing you know the masses will be out there, spray paint in hand scrawling tags over every thing, WHAT A w##k!
Of course there will be no discussion entered into, why young people have this incessant need to “paint” on walls. Last month we travelled in a train where three young guys were using that very thick type of Permanent Marker Chisel Point in front of our very eyes….My husband using his mobile phone rang the police who expected him to give his full personal details in front of the guy sitting one seat away from us. I was afraid for our personal safety!
I laughed reading the irate comments of our Nooksters, particularly grumpoldman, and could even understand their POV.
But censorship of any kind does have to be kept in context to the crime.
We don’t ban crime stories on the nightly television, full of ugly gruesome crimes, fully described and filmed at close level. Why then such a hue and cry over a documentary about a group of graffitti artists who are obviously sometimes talented but completely bored with the options to show their art available to them….It would be interesting to learn how many “ratbags of yesteryear” have gone on to become artists and cartoonists in their own right today.
I believe that not showing the film will just put it underground and make it even more attractive to emulate because of its notoriety. We are too quick to judge on behalf of others what is essentially not appealing to us as individuals.
Recording and publicizing what has happened regardless of its ugliness, should not be a reason for banning a documentary
I’d like to see it. Banning it only makes me more curious!!!