BEIRUT: Lebanon has officially banned The Post, the latest film by acclaimed Hollywood director Steven Spielberg, a Lebanon-based film industry source said Sunday.
A source involved with the film’s international rollout says the Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks drama was presented to the Lebanese censorship board, which nixed it, citing a “boycott Israel” list that includes Spielberg due to his Oscar-winning Holocaust film Schindler’s List (the 1993 film shot some scenes in Jerusalem).
Though The Post had initially passed the government’s normal screening procedures, the Campaign to Boycott Supporters of Israel-Lebanon (CBSIL) put pressure on the government to block the film over its director’s ties to Israel, the source told Annahar.
The matter has been transferred to Lebanon’s Minister of Interior and Municipalities, who could overturn the decision.
Italia Film was poised to release The Post in Lebanon on Jan. 18. A spokesperson for Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment says he cannot comment because the company has not been told officially by the Lebanese distributor that the pic will not be released there because of censorship.
The source says the move came as a shock, given that over the past three years, at least five films either directed or produced by Spielberg were accepted and approved by the censorship board and it is only now that it is invoking Spielberg’s inclusion on the “boycott Israel” list. Both The BFG and Bridge of Spies — which mark Spielberg’s two most recent helming efforts before The Post — were released in Lebanon.
Steven Spielberg, who hails from a Jewish family, was blacklisted by the Arab League’s Central Boycott Office after making a $1 million donation to Israel during the 2006 conflict with Lebanon.
The ban was enforced after a recommendation from a six-member committee from the Ministry of Economy was relayed to the General Security agency, an apparatus affiliated with the Interior Ministry, which has the final say.
Lebanon is officially at war with Israel and has a decades-old law that boycotts Israeli products and bars Lebanese citizens from traveling or having contacts with Israelis.
The Post, set in the 1970s, is a thrilling drama about the Washington Post’s Katharine Graham (Streep), the first female publisher of a major American newspaper, and editor Ben Bradlee (Hanks), as they expose a massive cover-up of government secrets that spanned three decades. It has already garnered critical acclaim, as well as some award nominations.
The film was scheduled to be released on January 18th in Lebanon. The ban marks the second time a movie by Spielberg sparks controversy in Lebanon. In 2011, AFP reported that an overzealous employee at a movie theater in Lebanon has blackened out the name of Spielberg from posters featuring his movie Tintin.
The employee, acting on the fact that Spielberg was blacklisted by the Arab League’s Central Boycott Office in 2006, covered the movie maker’s name at the weekend on posters advertising the film, a theater official told AFP.
In May 2017, Lebanon officially banned the superhero movie Wonder Woman because the lead actress, Gal Gadot, is Israeli and served in the military (as is required of all Israeli citizens).
The Post has been doing brisk business in the US in limited release. Since Fox released it on Dec. 22, the $50 million film from Amblin and Participant Media has earned $4.2 million. This weekend, The Post expanded nationwide into 2,819 theaters, where it grossed an estimated $18.6 million for the three days as it looks to a four-day gross of $22.2 million.