Censors in the Ukraine have banned the box office hit comedy Brüno, claiming that the film could “damage the morality” of its citizens, the Ukraine ministry of culture said today.
The ministry claimed that Brüno “contains unjustified showing of genital organs” and depicts “homosexual perversions” in an “explicitly realist manner.”
The ministry subsequently told local film distributor Sinergia it had "decided to ban all showings of this film on Ukrainian territory.”
Nine members of the culture ministry's 14-person commission voted for a total ban of Brüno, which is currently topping the box office chart in the United States and the United Kingdom.
Brüno star Sacha Baron-Cohen, who plays a gay Austrian fashionista in the film, had already landed himself in hot water with the former Soviet Union after his previous alter-ego, the Kazakh journalist Borat, caused controversy in the Central Asian state.
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, which ridiculed the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan and the United States and hit number one at the US box office, had been banned in the Ukraine, Russia and most of the Middle East.
Universal Pictures re-cut Brüno for UK audiences after it was rated 18, in order to make the film available to a wider audience and keep box office sales high.
An edited version was also released in the United States in order to prevent the film receiving an NC-17 rating, which would have prohibited anyone under the age of 17 from seeing the film.
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