Romania lifts ban on Lars Von Trier's 'Nymphomaniac 2'

The Romanian Cinema Board on Friday said it had lifted a ban on Danish director Lars Von Trier's controversial erotic epic "Nymphomaniac 2" and fired the official who had barred the film. The film will now be released as planned on February 7, but will be prohibited to minors. "As long as I am the head of the Cinema Board, there will not be any censorship on movies", the director of the Board Mihai Kogalniceanu told Mediafax news agency. The head of the rating commission who had initially banned the movie from theatre screenings was dismissed. The ban had caused an uproar in Romania with artists and Culture Minister Gigel Stirbu urging the board to allow the movie to be released. The film's Romanian distributor Independenta Film had appealed the decision saying Romania was the first country in Europe to ban "Nymphomaniac 2' and calling it "a unique case of censorship". "Nymphomaniac" tells the story of a woman's sexual awakening from childhood to age 50. It stars Charlotte Gainsbourg alongside Stellan Skarsgard and Shia LaBeouf. The film by the scandal-courting von Trier has made waves for its extensive nudity and no-holds-barred sex scenes. Once a favourite of the Cannes film festival, von Trier was ignominiously booted out in 2011 for making a Nazi joke about himself at a press conference. He won the Cannes Palme d'Or in 2000 for the death-row melodrama "Dancer in the Dark" and picked up its Jury Grand Prize for "Breaking the Waves" in 1996.