By Santosh Beharie
Red-faced officials at the Film and Publication Board, who blundered by endorsing the release of a child pornography movie, are desperately trying to recall copies of the film.
But their efforts come too late, as the film, ironically titled It's Just Wrong, has sold like "hot cakes" since its release in May.
An outraged senior board member said the blunder had caused huge embarrassment to his organisation.
"And the fact that we as the board, in conjunction with the department for home affairs, launched the 'Unite against Child Pornography' campaign in Port Elizabeth early last month, has made situation even more humiliating. It just goes to show that the board does not exercise due diligence," he said on condition of anonymity.
He lambasted the three examiners who passed the movie in the first place and called for stricter criteria in selecting future examiners. The board stopped the further sale and distribution of the movie in June after receiving numerous complaints from the public.
An independent review panel, chaired by Durban academic Karthy Govender, was then asked to rule on whether or not the movie constituted child pornography.
Govender said the review panel spent last weekend deliberating over the movie before ruling on Monday, without elaborating, that it was a child pornography film.
"But this ruling has come too late," the board official said.
"I have heard the movie sold like hot cakes from the day it was released. So there are plenty of copies out there that can be pirated and sold on the black market. I just can't understand why the board allowed inexperienced examiners to pass the movie in the first place," he said, claiming he was away when the board endorsed the film's release.
According to the Child Care Act, child pornography is the depiction of any image of any person under the age of 18, or who is depicted or appears to be under 18, engaged in sexual conduct.
When classifying a movie the board is required by law to report child pornography to the police.
"But for some strange reason this movie, which also clearly depicts young girls on its DVD cover, was classified and passed," the board member said.
"If the name of the film and the picture of the girls on the cover was not enough to raise doubts, then the movie itself left no doubt that underage girls starred in it.
"One can see from their appearance, mannerisms and even dialogue that they are young girls. I just feel that the board made a boo-boo by passing this film and am not surprised by the review panel's ruling.
"This is the first time we have had to recall a film but it should not have gone this far in the first place. One of the core functions of the board is to protect children but it failed to do so in this instance. The board seems to be getting slack because we never had a problem like this before," he said.
The board's CEO,Dopate Shozi, said the "error in judgment" in endorsing the film was due to the transformation taking place at the board.
"Our examiners are employed on a part-time basis and many are new to this field. They are from all walks of life, like teachers, lawyers and film-makers. We need more stringent measures and training for our examiners to ensure that such mistakes do not happen in future," said Shozi.
She said the movie's distributors, JTPublishers, had "done a great job" ensuring that the sale of the movie was timeously stopped.
The source at the board said the reason the movie sold so quickly after its release was because porn fans no longer got a thrill out of adult skin flicks.
"It's quite obvious that the attraction for those people were the underage girls who act in the film. It shows that there are still many perverts out there. But others were obviously concerned that the movie depicted underaged girls and rightfully lodged complaints," he said.
Five copies of the film, priced at R200, were sold within the first week of its release at an adult entertainment store in the Durban city centre.