A Belgian cinema has been forced to cancel screenings of the highly anticipated gang drama Black after riots broke out, reports Screen Daily.
Kinepolis Brussels was due to show the Toronto film festival award-winner on Wednesday night, but the evening devolved into chaos after underage filmgoers, who had entered the sold-out screening without tickets, refused to leave the auditorium.
Producer Frank Van Passel criticised Belgian censors for giving the film a 16 certificate, despite it being based on a children’s book. “There were a lot of young teenagers who really wanted to see the film,” he told Screen Daily. “I am not sure that these certificates work in an environment where all these young people are going to be able to see this film in a few months on DVD or online.”
Passel suggested censors might have considered rating Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah’s film 14+, though it is not thought such a certificate exists in Belgium. “Adil and Bilall, the two Moroccan-Belgian directors of the film, touched a sensitivity which hasn’t been touched until now,” he said of the huge interest shown in the movie.
Black, which won the Discovery award in Toronto, centres on a 15-year-old female gang member who falls for a boy from a rival, Moroccan group, and has been described as part City of God, part Romeo and Juliet. The film is cast entirely with young people from the streets of Brussels with no previous acting experience, and is based on Flemish author Dirk Bracke’s two novels Black and Back, about Belgian youth gangs.
The riots at Kinepolis Brussels broke out after filmgoers, turned away by cinema staff for being under age, purchased tickets for other movies and sneaked into the auditorium showing Black. When told that the screenings were sold out, they refused to leave and began throwing objects. The management called the police and made the decision to cancel two planned screenings. It is not clear if Black is due to screen outside of Belgium.
