13 Oct - French auteur Marina de Van said that she prefers Malaysia to ban or not release her movies rather than to censor them, to which she conceded that even DVD piracy is a better fate.
In an exclusive interview with Cinema Online at Hilton Hotel, Singapore, she said: "Please respect my movies as works that are very personal to me. If they are to be cut or altered in anyway, you might as well not release the movie."
When told that her 2002 movie "Dans Ma Peau" ("In My Skin") is available on illegal DVD copies in the extensive black market in Malaysia, she said: "Oh, is that so? I'm not a policeman. If more people get to see my movie, why not? I'm not a policeman."
She further asked if the pirated copies are good transfers and whether any subtitles, scenes or aspects are omitted.
The French director, frequent collaborator with celebrated arthouse maestro François Ozon, was in town for the Singapore French Film Festival on 10 October 2009, where her Monica Bellucci and Sophie Marceau-starrer "Ne Te Retourne Pas" ("Don't Look Back") closed the festival.
During the interview, she declined to speak about the film's reception at the Cannes Film Festival where it screened recently. However, she was at hand later at night for a Q&A session with guests at the Alliance Française Theatre, who asked her about the psychological thriller in which a woman creepily loses her sense of reality and finds herself becoming another woman.
Her debut directorial effort "Dans Ma Peau" focuses on a woman who injures herself accidentally and finds herself being addicted to pain and cutting.
"Don't Look Back" will play in Singapore come 3 December 2009. No information is available on a Malaysian release.
