Acropole wins court battle over censored film

ACROPOLE cinema yesterday won its court battle with police over the screening of the banned French sex film Romance last September.

The Nicosia District Court upheld the Acropole’s claim that its screening of the film had been for members of its film club only, and was therefore not a violation of the Cyprus censorship board’s ban on public screenings of the controversial film.

On September 15 last year, police raided the cinema during the fifteenth showing of the film at the Nicosia cinema and confiscated the film reel. State prosecutors argued in court that the screenings of the banned film were in effect open to the public as it was possible for anyone to pay to become a member of the Acropole film club at the box office just before the flick started.

District judge Haris Poyadjis rejected the state prosecution line and ordered police to return the confiscated film to Acropole management.

Acropole yesterday said they planned to run the film again, for club members only, in the near future.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.