“I offered you pleasure” is a short Lebanese movie by Farah Shaer that follows a shiite woman named Iman, who uses her religious right of performing pleasure marriage (zawaj el mot3a) to gather blessings for her late husband, and eventually creating a lot of controversy in her conservative surroundings.
As per this post by “STOP Cultural Terrorism in Lebanon” on Facebook, the movie seems to have been banned in Lebanon due to the fact that it tackles a sensitive subject after trying to submit it to two local film festivals and getting rejected.
“To all the people living in Beirut who wanted to watch the short film “I Offered You Pleasure” (وهبتك المتعة) of which I was the Director, I tell you this:
Unfortunately, the Lebanese Film Festival circuit seems is as corrupt as our governments, as we’ve presented the film to two local festivals & they both rejected the film.
On the other hand, the World’s Biggest Short Film Festival (Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival) chose it from more than 6150 entries from around the world (& as the only short film to represent Lebanon) …. It toured also to the biggest festival in Asia (Busan International Film Festival) & is now going on a tour between North Africa, Europe, & Latin America … but in Beirut…. well… what can we say… it’s a real shame … seems we will never be able to show it here…”
http://www.clermont-filmfest.com/index.php?&m=134&c=3&id_film=200027897&o=106
Trailer >> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=limIyXVZ_Ys
So basically, you can make a movie about anything in Lebanon except politics and religion!
