Francis Lee, the writer and director of the 2017 queer romance film God’s Own Country, has claimed that its U.S. distributor “butchered” the movie by removing its gay sex scenes.
The British director took to Twitter Tuesday to call attention to the fact that the version of the film that was available to stream on Amazon’s Prime Video “appeared to be censored.” The scenes that had gone absent included “an outdoor-wrestling sex scene, and another sex scene in a horse auctioneer’s trailer,” according to Vulture. “Until this is investigated please do not rent or buy on Amazon Prime,” Lee warned. “It is not the film I intended or made.”
He clarified in follow-up tweets Wednesday that the culprit was not Amazon, but rather the U.S. distributor, Samuel Goldwyn Films, who allegedly censored the film “without consultation to get more ‘revenue.’” He then clarified that the streaming version of the film had been taken down from Amazon Prime Video, but it was still available to rent or buy from the platform. In a separate thread, he added that the version streaming on Netflix “is perfect.”
“I would caution any film maker of working with the aforementioned ‘distributor,’” Lee concluded.
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A spokesperson for Amazon told Vulture that God’s Own Country might have been flagged for “graphic content” and received an “MA” rating by Amazon’s algorithm, because it was uploaded via Amazon’s Prime Video Direct service, which allows independent filmmakers and distributors to upload their own films. “A distributor, like Samuel Goldwyn Films, in this instance, could then re-edit a film and resubmit it for a different rating, if they so choose, without Amazon’s involvement or input,” Vulture reports.
them. has reached out to representatives for Samuel Goldwyn Films for further comment.
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