The most explicit British film ever?

10 April 2012

The director of the most sexually explicit mainstream British film ever made appealed to regulators today to allow the film to be released.

Nine Songs, directed by Michael Winterbottom, contains real sex scenes between the two main actors - many in close-up - including ejaculation, fellatio and cunnilingus.

It had its first screening at the Cannes film festival yesterday. Despite the explicit sex, Mr Winterbottom has appealed to the film censors to give Nine Songs a certificate for general release in the UK.

He said of the fellatio and ejaculation scene, the strongest material in the film: "We can always take that out."

While the sexual content of Nine Songs is likely to anger campaigners against on-screen sex and violence, the film is described by its producers as a love story.

Mr Winterbottom, who this year won a special Evening Standard film award, is the director of 24 Hour Party People, In This World and Jude.

He said: "I had been thinking for a while about the fact that most cinematic love stories miss out on the physical relationship, and if it is indicated at all, everyone knows it is fake.

"Books do deal explicitly with sex, as they do with any other subject. Cinema has been extremely conservative and prudish. I wanted to go to the opposite extreme and show a relationship only through sex.

"Part of the point of making the film was to say, 'What's wrong with showing sex?'"

The film is about a young couple in London, Matt and his American girlfriend Lisa. Sex scenes between them make up more than half the film.

Kieran O'Brien, who also appeared in 24 Hour Party People, plays Matt. But American Margo Stilley, who plays Lisa, is not a professional actress.

She has asked that her name not be used in publicity for the film, although it is set to run in the film's credits.

Mr Winterbottom said: "She is not an actress. She really likes the film but she is going back to university and I think she wants to keep a low profile." After the two leads were cast a rehearsal was staged, following which both were given the opportunity to leave the film.

Mr Winterbottom said that despite the intimacy of the film, the shoot was straightforward and was simply a matter of going "one step further" than the requirements of regular sex scenes.

"After a couple of days it was a case of that was what we were doing and everyone adapted," he said.

A spokesman for the British Board of Film Classification said that it would decide on a certificate when the film was submitted for approval.

The first screening, at 10am in Cannes, proved too early for many film writers, perhaps unwilling to be confronted with such material so soon after breakfast. One critic who has seen it said: "It looks like a porn movie, but feels like a love story." The critic added that it was shot with "Winterbottom's customary sensitivity".

Sex scenes are intercut with performances by bands including Franz Ferdinand, the Dandy Warhols and Super Furry Animals.

Composer Michael Nyman also features in the film, when the couple attend his 60th birthday concert at Hackney Empire.

Nyman said: "I'm very pleased to be in the most sexually explicit film in British film history, especially as I am not doing anything sexual. I can't wait to see it."

In the 2001 film Intimacy, New Zealand-born Kerry Fox made film history by becoming the first actress in a mainstream British cinema release to perform oral sex on camera.

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The most explicit British film ever?

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