China bans director, producer for 5 years

BEIJING

Chinese director Lou Ye has been banned from making movies in his home country for five years because his film was screened at Cannes in May without government approval, state media has said.

The main Xinhua News Agency said Monday that Mr. Lou’s movie, “Summer Palace,” would be confiscated and income from it would be seized. The film is a sexually explicit love story set against China’s pro-democracy protests of 1989, which led up to the brutal Tiananmen Square crackdown.

Producer Nai An also was banned from making films in China for five years, Xinhua said.

Mr. Lou attended the premiere of the film at the Cannes Film Festival in southern France in May without first obtaining permission from China’s State Administration of Radio, Film and Television.

Hong Kong media reported earlier this year that Chinese authorities had ordered local news outlets not to report on “Summer Palace” at Cannes. The film has not been approved for release in China.

In 2000, when Jiang Wen’s “Devils on the Doorstep” showed at Cannes without government approval, censors kept the movie off the Chinese market, angering investors. In 1997, China pulled Zhang Yimou’s film “Keep Cool” from the festival competition.

Mr. Lou has said his film is somewhat autobiographical.

“I wanted to tell this story because, in 1989, I was myself a student at Peking University and was involved in a romance,” he said earlier this year, referring to similarities between him and the characters in “Summer Palace.”

The student protests ended with the crackdown at Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989, which left hundreds if not thousands dead. Chinese authorities still maintain the demonstrations were counterrevolutionary riots.