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iTunes Bans Sundance Shorts

iTunes has refused to carry two animated short films that were screened at Sundance and were invited to be part of the festival's online shorts program, Nancy Denney-Phelps reports on her blog Sprockets (sprockets.animationblogspot.com). Signe Bauman's TEAT BEAT OF SEX and BECAUSE WASHINGTON IS HOLLYWOOD FOR UGLY PEOPLE, by Kenneth Ti and Kin Hung, were rejected by the online store for being, respectively, too explicit and too political.

The Sundance Film Festival has expressed concern about the censorship, but contends that there is nothing they can do about it. The package deal was supposed to have included downloads via iTunes, Netflix, and Xbox, but neither film is available from any of the three services.

Director Baumane said about the move that it "comes from corporations unwilling to take a risk. Corporations never push the envelope; it is individuals. It is remarkable that violence is OK, but not sex." Karl Cohen, president of ASIFA-SF, commented: "I see this as another stupid act of censorship that illustrates the dangers of having a few corporations in control of our media. TEAT BEAT OF SEX was commissioned for European television by a distributor and it is being shown there, but it's considered too controversial to show on iTunes, Netflix, and Xbox. Isn't something wrong with this picture?"

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