The film censor, Mr Sheamus Smith, has prohibited the video and DVD release of the violent, sexually-explicit French film, Baise-Moi. The film's distributors subsequently submitted the film to the Film Appeals Board, which upheld the censor's decision.
In the low-budget film, a chance meeting brings together two young women, one of whom is gang-raped at the outset, and they take off on a rampage of sex and slaughter. Their targets include a well-dressed woman who is using an ATM; they shoot her dead after obtaining her pin number. They beat one middle-aged male pick-up to death, and they deal with a sex club manager by shooting him in the anus.
In between revelling in acts of extreme violence, the two women engage in casual sex which is filmed with all the realism of hardcore pornography. The leading roles are played by two women recruited from the pornographic film industry, Raffalea Anderson and Karen Bach.
Baise-Moi had its roots in a 1994 novel written by Virginie Despentes, who had worked in prostitution, peep shows and pornographic magazines. It was written in four weeks, or as Ms Despentes put it, "vomited in a spirit of hate", and she describes its principal characters as "Thelma and Louise's wicked younger sisters".
She co-directed the film of the book with Coralie Trinh Thi, a pornography performer who shared her "vision of a feminist battle, an avant-garde battle, as well as a certain fondness of the provocative".
Three years ago the film caused a furore in France, where it was withdrawn from Paris cinemas after three days on release and given an X rating which restricted its exhibition to sex cinemas. It secured a general release two months later, following a petition organised by outspoken film director Catherine Breillat.
Baise-Moi was not submitted to the film censor for cinema release in Ireland. Instead, it was released in Dublin last summer on a club basis at the Irish Film Centre, where admission to films without a censor's certificate is restricted to members and their guests. All members have to be over 18 years of age.
This may be the last film rejected by Mr Smith, who retires as film censor at the end of next week, having held the position since 1986. Among the few significant films he banned during his tenure were Whore, Natural Born Killers and From Dusk Till Dawn. The Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, has appointed Mr John Kelleher, a film producer and a former senior executive with RTÉ and the Sunday Tribune, to the position with effect from April 7th.