Miramax defends The Magdalene Sisters
Movie house Miramax Films has said it meant to address the issue of abuse of women in the critically acclaimed film The Magdalene Sisters.
Leading Catholic groups said that the movie singles out Catholics for negative portrayal.
Magdalene, which won the Golden Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival and won the Discovery Award at the Toronto International Film Festival, tells the story of three women sent to live in a home run by nuns in 1960s Ireland.
Promoted as a true story, the movie shows how the three were abused, mostly on a mental level but also physically, said Matthew Hiltzik, spokesman for Miramax, a unit of the Walt Disney Co., which also owns Movies.com.
The US-based Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights criticized Miramax's decision to distribute the film, saying the movie attacks Catholicism.
"To be sure, conditions were harsh by today's standards, but they were not uncommon in their day," the group said in a statement. "Historians have recounted how Protestant-run institutions were similar."
Hiltzik said Miramax was impressed by the film not for its specific portrayal of a situation involving Catholics, but rather for its ability to address the difficult issue of the treatment of women in that era.
"This is a brilliant, emotional film by a world-class filmmaker, which we look forward to sharing with American audiences," Hiltzik said.
He acknowledged that the abusive practices portrayed in the film may have occurred among other groups, but said the film was meant to address a difficult issue regardless of the responsible party.
Miramax is no stranger to controversy, having distributed or planned to distribute a number of films that have prompted threatened boycotts and other actions in recent years.
Another of its recent acquisitions, Ararat, which tells the story of Armenian-Canadians in contemporary Toronto, was threatened with a boycott by Turkish groups opposed to references to the slaughter of as many as 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Turks between 1915 and 1923.
Miramax was also set to distribute the 1999 religious satire Dogma, but later dropped it after its often blasphemous humor angered Catholics.
The company's 1995 release The Priest, which chronicles the struggles of a gay cleric, also prompted a number of religious groups to boycott Disney.
