The Moral Panic Film Club

Did you know that you could potentially be prosecuted for taking consensual, private pictures of yourself or your partner, if the government deems them to be obscene?

Join us in an evening of disgust and moral panic to raise funds to support Backlash UK’s academic, legal and campaigning resources defending freedom of sexual expression and the right to personal privacy.

PROGRAM

7 pm – Doors open. Welcome, by the Backlash team. The Hackney Attic comprises a screening room and bar. Meet us and our supporters and allies, while enjoying a drink.

7.30 Video Nasties: Moral panic, Censorship and videotape (2010). Directed by James West. A documentary that analyses the 80′s “moral panic” created by the popularisation of home video and the imagined horrors of making porn accessible to children. The threat of VHS in 1983, the horrors of he internet in 2013… how the shock of the new creates moral panics and absurd legislation in the name of “protecting the children”.

8.45. Panel: with Julian Petley, Ms Tytania, Jerry Barnett and Sarah Harman. Chaired by Myles Jackman, aka Obscenity Lawyer. Scroll down to the bottom of this page, to find out more about the speakers on the “about the speakers” section.

9-30: Break and drinks at the bar.

9-45: Film: The Devils (1971). Starring Vanessa Redgrave and Oliver Reed, directed by Ken Russell.

Ken Russell’s controversial take on XVIIth Century witch trials. Never shown in its original, uncensored version, the film suffered substantial cuts by the BBFC, and even more by its distributors, Warner Bros,due to its graphic scenes of a violent, sexual and religious nature. Mark Kermode’s restored version is the closest we have to the film as Russell conceived it.


11.30: Music, DJ and drinks.