Visions of Ecstasy is a 1989 short film that became the only work to be refused a certification by the British Board of Film Classification on the grounds of blasphemy. The film, which was directed by Nigel Wingrove, was banned because it featured sexualised scenes of Saint Teresa of Ávila with the body of Jesus on the cross. The BBFC felt that any release of the film could be liable for prosecution under the common law offence of blasphemous libel.
As cutting the scenes would remove approximately half of the film's content, the board decided to refuse certification altogether. The distributor appealed to the European Court of Human Rights but the BBFC's decision to reject certification was upheld.
In 2008 the blasphemy laws in the UK were repealed. In January 2012 the BBFC gave the film an 18 certificate with no cuts or alterations to the original film's content.
Read more about Visions Of Ecstasy: Plot, Conviction
Famous quotes containing the words visions of, visions and/or ecstasy:
“...I remembered the rose bush that had reached a thorny branch out through the ragged fence, and caught my dress, detaining me when I would have passed on. And again the symbolism of it all came over me. These memories and visions of the poor—they were the clutch of the thorns. Social workers have all felt it. It holds them to their work, because the thorns curve backward, and one cannot pull away.”
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“What visions in the dark of light!”
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“Life has always taken place in a tumult without apparent cohesion, but it only finds its grandeur and its reality in ecstasy and in ecstatic love.”
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