Well, it’s about damn time. Moonlight, last year’s phenomenal Oscar underdog (and subsequent Best Picture winner), has finally received a rating from the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) — and surprisingly, it’s not cutting anything from the LGBT movie.
The 2016 critically-acclaimed drama — featuring stunning performances by a predominantly black cast — faced an uncertain fate in Singapore, where authorities are considerably hardline in their stance against LGBT content (or really, anything risqué) in films. Eric Khoo’s Be With Me, Boo Jun Feng’s Tanjong Rhu, and Madeleine Lim’s Sambal Belacan in San Francisco all faced the glowering disapproval of the censorship board in one way or another.
But there have been films with LGBT content that made it past the censors — Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain, for example, was screened in Singapore uncut, albeit with an R21 rating.
Moonlight fared a lot better though. After much uncertainty on whether it would even be screened here, indie cinema theatre The Projector confirmed that it will be showing the film after all. Meanwhile, Popspoken found out that Shaw cinemas will also be releasing the film on Apr 27.
According to the notice on IMDA’s website, Moonlight has “Passed Clean” with an M18 rating and an advisory of “Some Homosexual Content”.
Here’s what IMDA had to say about why the film was considered okay by M18 standards (Spoilers, of course):
“The film contains a scene where the protagonist is seen sharing a passionate kiss with his male friend, before the latter is implied to perform a sexual act on him. The act is depicted discreetly through a series of cut-away shots to suggest that the protagonist is deriving sexual gratification, and is therefore contained within the M18 Classification Guidelines.”
The Projector is over the effin’ moon about the rating and, surprise surprise, having Moonlight director Barry Jenkins for an exclusive live streamed Q&A session in its cinema:
If you’re one of the few who have yet to catch Moonlight (yeap, pretty much everyone are pirates), this would be an excellent time to catch an excellent piece of filmic art. More details on The Projector’s website.
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