The Grand Illusion Cinema has scheduled a course of films for September that include works written or directed by female-identified filmmakers or featuring strong female storylines. One of these was Scarlet Diva, the semi-autobiographical film written, directed, and starring Asia Argento.
But after a report came out on Sunday that alleged Argento had sexually assaulted a 17-year-old boy and paid him $360,000 to keep it under wraps, Grand Illusion decided to pull the film from the course.
“We are going to pull Scarlet Diva,” Dan Hudson, Grand Illusion’s lead programmer said. “We are not going to run it.”
Scarlet Diva was originally released in 2000 to, frankly, not much acclaim. However, it’s had a resurgence. Argento, one of the most outspoken of Harvey Weinstein’s accusers, included a rape scene in the movie that plays exactly the way she said Weinstein attacked her. The only difference, as she has said in interviews, is that the character in the movie got away.
Scarlet Diva comes from a deeply personal place; it is a work born from trauma and depicts the harsh realities young women in the entertainment industry face. This is why the Grand Illusion was going to show the film.
“The film in its rerelease had really featured heavily around publicity that was largely being driven by Asia around the fact that the film includes a rather thinly veiled scene of the sexual assault on her,” Hudson said. “It was being marketed as a very #MeToo feminist film.”
The Grand Illusion did not feel that Argento’s own actions, as have come to light recently, aligned with their values and the values they’re trying to present with programming this film at this time.
“At the Grand Illusion we can present pretty much whatever we want, and I feel there’s a responsibility in that. I specifically have made it a point to not book films I feel are by problematic filmmakers or have problematic content in the current context,” Hudson wrote in a follow-up email. “I go further than many other art house theatres in this regard; there are so many great films by so many great artists, we can always present work by people that aren’t sexually predatory or studios/distributors that enable that behavior.”
There is no mention on the theater’s website that Scarlet Diva was ever going to be shown. Instead, there is a mysterious programming gap from Sept. 10 – 13 where it was originally slated to run. That slot will soon be filled by A24’s Never Going Back by Augustine Frizzell.
More in NEWS
Local (and not-so-local) news from your favorite writers.
