The film Noémie says yes, on juvenile prostitution, prohibited for children under 16

I’m still stunned and a little in disbelief explains producer Patricia Bergeron about maintaining the rating 16 and over decided by the Directorate of Business Services and Film Classification of the Ministry of Culture and Communications (MCC).

We are in a collective blindness, we prefer to bury a reality [celle de la prostitution juvénile] not to see her.

In a letter to members of the review committee on Wednesday, Louis Dussault, president of distributor K-Films America, called the decision a act of pure moral censorship .

Their disappointment, as well as that of director Geneviève Albert, is all the greater since 13-15 year olds will be able to see Noémie says yes in a few months on the platforms while this film is made to be seen in the cinema and that sexuality is more suggested there than exposed graphically.

There’s a lot of things offscreen that we don’t show assures Patricia Bergeron.

An escalation of disturbing images according to the committee

In its decision, the Review Committee recognizes that the majority of sexual activities are suggested and take place off-camera and Noémie says yes “could warn young girls under 16 of the consequences of prostitution”.

When classifying the film in the 16 years and over category, the examiners-classifiers had singled out the climate of psychological physical violence of the film and the fact that it was a detailed catalog of often sordid and perverse sexual gestures, positions and practices .

Even though Noémie says wherei does not glorify prostitution and avoid eroticizing the teenager, it still contains an accumulation of sexual situations spread out crudely and relentlessly during the third of the filmthey added, still according to the document of the review committee.

Members of the review board were also concerned about the film’s effects on young audiences.

The commendable educational intentions of the work cannot diminish the impact of the images on the majority of teenagers, because the distribution of Noémie says yes will go well beyond educational frameworks.

The majority of young spectators aged 13 to 15 have not yet acquired the tools necessary to absorb the excess of disturbing images and assimilate the raw treatment offered in the film. Noémie says yesand that this could undermine their development, concludes the committee.

Out of step with the reality of young people in 2022?

A conclusion that Louis Dussault considers totally biased[e] by an out of phase Judeo-Christian ideology. Young people today, from the age of 13, have their first sexual experiences, he adds.

Patricia Bergeron also thinks that the judgment of the Department of Business Services and Film Classification is out of step with the reality experienced by 13-15 year olds.

People are in front of all the screens and social networks, in front of all the possible and imaginable images, and those that we cannot imagine.

A few weeks before the Canadian Grand Prix

Another argument according to the film crew: the average age of entry into prostitution is 14, according to a document from the Council for the Status of Women dating from 2012.

In a few weeks, a big car race will take place [le Grand prix du Canada] and hundreds of young girls will be in the beds of the big hotels waiting for their customers, but these same young girls are not allowed to see Noémie says yesprotests Louis Dussault in his letter.

This text was written from an interview conducted by Catherine Richer, cultural columnist on the show On 15-18. Comments may have been edited for clarity and conciseness.