Transgender-themed Oscar favorite The Danish Girl has been pulled from cinemas in Qatar after the film failed to clear the country’s censor board.
The Danish Girl — starring Oscar-winner Eddie Redmayne (The Theory of Everything) as artist Lili Elbe, who in the 1920s became one of the first documented recipients of gender reassignment surgery — had begun screening in Qatari cinemas on Thursday before being abruptly pulled on Sunday, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The outlet reports that social media complaints led to the censor board’s decision. THR quotes one user who complained that the film was full of “enough moral depravity to go around the world.”
“We would like to inform you that we have communicated with the necessary departments and have banned showing the Danish film on movie screens,” Qatar’s Culture Ministry tweeted on Tuesday, according to a translation by CNN.
The film has also reportedly failed to clear censor boards in Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates, though it wasn’t immediately clear if the film was outright banned in those countries.
The Danish Girl has been a critical favorite and is expected to be nominated for several honors when the Academy Awards announces its nominees on Thursday. Redmayne and co-star Alicia Vikander both received Golden Globe and BAFTA Award nominations.
In November, the White House hosted a screening of The Danish Girl and the transgender-themed Amazon series Transparent as part of its new LGBT “Champions of Change” program.
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