Press release from TM Publicity
SHAME, the acclaimed new film by Steve McQueen (Hunger), starring Venice Film Festival Best Actor winner Michael Fassbender, will be released nationally across Australia on February 9, 2012.
Also starring Carey Mulligan (currently in Australia shooting Baz Luhrmann’s THE GREAT GATSBY), SHAME is powerful and provocative cinema from a master filmmaker.
SHAME has received an R18+ classification from the Office of Film & Literature Classification Board. Actor Michael Fassbender has expressed surprise and disappointment at the film receiving a comparable NC-17 rating in the U.S.
Speaking to The Huffington Post, Fassbender said "Most of us have sex, so I don't understand what we're trying to sweep under the carpet or repress" he says.
“It’s a serious film that deserves to be treated as such. Half of us have a penis and the other half have probably seen one, and so why should it be more normal to, like, chop people's heads off and shoot people? Does that mean that that's more acceptable or closer to us as human beings?," said Fassbender in the Huffington Post interview.
The R18+ rating in Australia will restrict the ability for SHAME to be marketed in Australian cinemas. In the United States last week Fox Searchlight released a new SHAME trailer that will only be available in Australia via the internet: