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The Jewish community centre JW3 has cancelled its screening of a film by a Charedi film-maker over her insistence that it be shown to a women-only audience.
JW3 said it had made the "regrettable" decision on legal advice after a complaint had been received by the Equalities Commission.
The film, Gift of Fire, was due to be shown at JW3 as part of the Israeli Film and Televsion Festival, Seret 2015.
Director Rechy Elias had insisted that, for religious reasons, men should be barred from the screening.
JW3 chief executive Raymond Simonson said: "Following the one and only complaint we received from a gentleman who also contacted the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, we took legal advice. Unfortunately, it seems that showing this film only to female-only audiences would indeed be in breach of UK equality laws, which we would of course never intentionally do”.
Seret organisers declined to comment.
Festival-goer David Lass, who had made the complaint to the Equalities Commission over being denied the opportunity to see the film, said he "very much regretted the outcome".
He said: "I would have welcomed a compromise solution allowing two screenings, one for women and one for men, but the organisers would not allow it."
JW3’s U-turn comes after the festival organisers cancelled a screening at the Odeon Swiss Cottage following the cinema group's refusal to bar men from the audience.
JW3's statement in full:
Following legal advice, JW3 has decided to cancel the screening of Gift of Fire as part of the SERET Film Festival. It’s regrettable that we will no longer be able to screen the film by Rechy Elias, a female film director from the Haredi community.
Elias made Gift of Fire with the explicit intention of it only being shown to female audiences; without that condition, she would never have made the film. “We had hoped to able to provide this rare platform for a Haredi female film maker to express herself artistically, as well as a ‘safe’ environment for Jewish women from across the entire spectrum of the community to see this unique film.”
Said Raymond Simonson, CEO of JW3. “However, following the one and only complaint we received from a gentleman who also contacted the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, we took legal advice. Unfortunately, it seems that showing this film only to female-only audiences would indeed be in breach of UK equality laws, which we would of course never intentionally do”.
JW3 have therefore regrettably had to cancel the screening. Simonson added: “Gift of Fire has been screened to thousands of women over the world without ever encountering such problems. “We hope it will be seen by many more. We hope that SERET will be able to offer the film as a private invite-only event, which would be within the law.”
