A Serbian Film (2010)

A Serbian Film (Srpski film) is the 2010 feature debut of Serbian director Srđan Spasojević, co-written with Aleksandar Radivojević and starring Srđan Todorović as Miloš, a semi-retired porn star and family man who accepts one last, well-paid “art film” job without ever seeing the script — and descends into scenarios of escalating sexual violence (Screen Anarchy). Handled worldwide by sales agent Jinga Films (Flickering Myth), the film premiered at SXSW in March 2010 and then detonated across the world’s censorship regimes: 49 BBFC cuts for a UK 18, a criminal prosecution of the Sitges festival director in Spain (charges dropped), outright bans in Norway, Australia and New Zealand, and a court ban at the San Sebastián horror festival (Participations; Screen Anarchy; The Norway Post).

For clarity: this profile is about the 2010 film — not about Serbia as a country, and not a plot synopsis. It documents the film’s documented real-world legal history and keeps plot description to what the cited classification documents and contemporary reviews themselves state.

A debut engineered for infamy

Spasojević’s debut arrived at SXSW in March 2010 already carrying the reputation it would never shed: Screen Anarchy’s reviewer called it one of the most raw and transgressive films he had ever seen, while arguing it was “no mere exploitation film” but a satire with the substance to withstand the firestorm it triggered (Screen Anarchy). The credits are straightforward — directed by Srđan Spasojević, screenplay by Aleksandar Radivojević and Spasojević, with Srđan Todorović, Sergej Trifunović, Jelena Gavrilović and Slobodan Bestić in the cast (Screen Anarchy; New Zealand OFLC). Spasojević himself has described the film publicly as “a diary of our own molestation by the Serbian government” — an allegory of leaders who hypnotise people into acts they would not choose — a framing the censors’ own documents note while ruling against the film anyway (New Zealand OFLC). The peer-reviewed University of Leicester study that pairs the film with The Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence) notes that formal comparisons between the two films’ BBFC ordeals began even before the Centipede sequel had secured classification (Participations).

The bans, territory by territory

The United Kingdom cut first and deepest: Westminster Council required advance BBFC classification before the film’s scheduled uncut FrightFest premiere on 29 August 2010, the BBFC demanded 49 individual cuts across 11 scenes, the premiere was pulled, and the resubmitted version was granted an 18 certificate with 4 minutes 12 seconds removed — promptly labelled the most cut and most censored UK cinema release in 16 years (Participations). Australia first granted an R18+ on 5 April 2011, but the Minister for Justice sought a review, and on 19 September 2011 the Classification Review Board unanimously refused classification, ruling that the sexual violence, incest themes and depictions of child sexual abuse had an impact “very high and not justified by context” — making the film unsellable, unhirable and unadvertisable across the country (Australian CRB). New Zealand’s Classification Office followed on 24 May 2012, rating the DVD “Objectionable” with no excisions recommended — an outright ban — on grounds including extreme sexual violence, sexual conduct with children and young persons, and necrophilia, with the office’s published reasoning weighing the injury-to-the-public-good test against the film’s disputed claims to merit (New Zealand OFLC). Norway’s Mediatilsynet banned it for containing violence with the sexualisation of children, consultant Ove Wathne telling the Norwegian press that this was the basis for the authority’s assessment (The Norway Post). The stat, source and implication: 49 cuts and 4m 12s (Participations, citing BBFC records) versus 32 cuts and 2m 37s for The Human Centipede 2 (BBFC, via 4RFV) — implying that between 2010 and 2011 the BBFC’s appetite for salvage-by-editing grew even as its headline rhetoric about “uncuttable” films stayed severe.

The prosecution that wasn’t

Spain produced the film’s strangest legal episode. After an adults-only midnight screening at the Sitges Film Festival in October 2010, a complaint from a Roman Catholic organisation led the Spanish prosecutor, in May 2011, to charge festival director Àngel Sala with exhibiting child pornography — a charge carrying potential jail time (Screen Anarchy). Separate court orders also barred the film from the San Sebastián horror festival’s 21st Semana de Cine Fantástico y de Terror, and screenings were cancelled at other Spanish venues (Screen Anarchy). In February 2012, El País reported that the charges had been dropped: the authorities ruled the film was not pornographic, placed it within the “gore” genre, and concluded that even with its graphic content it was “quite clearly speaking against” the acts it depicted (Screen Anarchy). The Sitges festival’s own statement expressed satisfaction with the dismissal and committed to continuing the debate around the limits of film and freedom of expression (Screen Anarchy). Unlike The Bunny Game — which the BBFC refused outright and which never recovered a UK certificate — A Serbian Film survived every jurisdiction’s process in some cut form except the ones that banned it entirely.

Classification record

Jurisdiction	Decision	Date	Cut length	Source
United Kingdom (BBFC)	18	Nov 2010 (resubmission)	49 cuts across 11 scenes, 4m 12s	Participations
Spain	Festival director prosecuted; charges dropped	May 2011 – Feb 2012	n/a	Screen Anarchy
Spain (San Sebastián)	Court ban from horror festival	2010	n/a	Screen Anarchy
Australia (Classification Board)	R18+	5 Apr 2011	None	Australian CRB
Australia (Classification Review Board)	Refused Classification (unanimous)	19 Sep 2011	n/a — ban replaced the R18+	Australian CRB
Norway (Mediatilsynet)	Banned	2011–2012	n/a	The Norway Post
New Zealand (OFLC)	Objectionable (outright ban)	24 May 2012	None recommended	NZ OFLC

Key milestones

Date	Milestone	Source
Mar 2010	North American premiere at SXSW; Spasojević’s feature debut	Screen Anarchy
29 Aug 2010	Uncut London FrightFest premiere pulled after BBFC demands 49 cuts	Participations
Oct 2010	Adults-only midnight screening at Sitges, Spain	Screen Anarchy
Nov 2010	Resubmitted cut version granted UK 18 (4m 12s removed)	Participations
May 2011	Spanish prosecutor charges Sitges director Àngel Sala with exhibiting child pornography	Screen Anarchy
19 Sep 2011	Australia: Review Board refuses classification, replacing R18+	Australian CRB
Feb 2012	El País reports the Sitges charges are dropped	Screen Anarchy
24 May 2012	New Zealand: OFLC rates the DVD “Objectionable,” no excisions recommended	NZ OFLC

Frequently asked questions

Who made A Serbian Film? It is the feature debut of Serbian director Srđan Spasojević, co-written with Aleksandar Radivojević, starring Srđan Todorović as Miloš, a semi-retired porn star, alongside Sergej Trifunović and Jelena Gavrilović. It premiered at SXSW in March 2010, and Jinga Films handled it as world sales agent.

Why was it banned in so many countries? The bans cluster around sexual violence and the sexualisation of children: the UK’s BBFC required 49 cuts across 11 scenes (4m 12s) before granting an 18; Australia reversed an R18+ to Refused Classification in September 2011; New Zealand rated it Objectionable in May 2012; Norway’s Mediatilsynet banned it for violence combined with the sexualisation of children.

Was anyone actually prosecuted over the film? Yes, in Spain. After an adults-only midnight screening at the 2010 Sitges Film Festival, the Spanish prosecutor charged festival director Àngel Sala with exhibiting child pornography in May 2011 following a complaint from a Roman Catholic organisation. The charges were dropped in February 2012 after authorities ruled the film was not pornographic and fell within the “gore” genre.

Did the film get banned in Spain itself? Courts barred it from the San Sebastián horror festival and other Spanish screenings were cancelled, but the theatrical version was not permanently banned nationwide; the DVD version received a Pelicula “X” classification. (Note: the nationwide-ban details appeared only in tertiary sources and are not asserted here.)

What did the director say the film was about? Spasojević has described it as “a diary of our own molestation by the Serbian government” — an allegory of monolithic power hypnotising people into acts they would not choose. New Zealand’s censors noted the film’s disputed claims to merit while ruling against it anyway.

What this profile does not claim

• It describes the film’s content only as far as the cited documents describe it (the NZ Classification Office’s published summary of reasons and Screen Anarchy’s contemporary review); it offers no independent plot synopsis of specific scenes.
• It does not assert bans in Brazil, Malaysia, the Netherlands or Germany — those appeared only in tertiary sources in this pass.
• It does not endorse the circulating “banned in 46 countries” figure, which no primary source was found to support.
• The specific Norwegian Penal Code sections reported by tertiary sources were not independently verified; the profile asserts only The Norway Post’s read-in-full account of the Mediatilsynet ban.
• The BBFC’s own case-study figures are carried via the peer-reviewed Participations study, which cites BBFC records; the BBFC page was not re-fetched.

What we could not verify

• The BBFC’s own case-study page for the film (24 November 2010 entry) — not re-fetched; figures carried by the peer-reviewed study citing BBFC records.
• A Brazil court ban and its reported July 2012 reversal — tertiary sources only, not asserted.
• Bans reported in Malaysia, the Netherlands, and Germany (FSK) — tertiary sources only, not asserted.
• El País’s original February 2012 report on the dropped Sitges charges — referenced via Screen Anarchy’s full-read report of it.
• The “banned in 46 countries” tabloid figure — unverifiable, not asserted.

Sources

Tier 1 (3): Australian Classification Review Board media release (19 Sep 2011 — unanimous RC, replacing the 5 Apr 2011 R18+, ministerial review, legal test); New Zealand Office of Film and Literature Classification decision (24 May 2012 — “Objectionable,” no excisions, official credits, published reasons); the Participations peer-reviewed study (Weir & Dunne, University of Leicester, Nov 2014 — FrightFest/BBFC 49 cuts, 4m12s, “most cut” UK release in 16 years, Miloš plot, Centipede comparison). Tier 2 (4): Screen Anarchy ×2 (SXSW 2010 premiere, debut, credits, plot; Sitges prosecution and dropped charges via El País); The Norway Post (Mediatilsynet ban, Ove Wathne); Flickering Myth (Jinga Films as global sales agent, UK-cuts-vs-Bunny-Game comparison). Tier 3 (0). First-party (0). Wikipedia: lead index only, not cited.