There are some decisions made by the MPAA that confound filmmakers, and for Anita Doron, the NC-17 rating given to her new movie, Maya and Samar, is one of them. The movie centers on a story around a queer romance between a Canadian journalist and Afghan woman living in Greece after escaping the Taliban in her home country. While the story seems like one that could have easily earned an R-rating, the film’s graphic scenes between the two female leads have earned it one of the most restrictive ratings for its U.S. release.
Maya and Samar receives its world premiere today at the Thessaloniki Film Festival, but is already grabbing attention as its director slammed the decision to rate the movie NC-17. Doran told Variety:
“The fact that we got an NC-17 rating, even though this film is a love story, but many other films — where it’s not a queer love story — [don’t] get an NC-17 rating, was…shocking. [The intimate scenes featured are about] the joy and the sacredness of their sexuality, of their shared sexual experience.”
Maya and Samar is the kind of movie that breaks boundaries and aims to tell stories that some will take issue with. Doron has no problems diving into this territory, and does so with both feet. The movie’s synopsis reads:
“Maya (Nicolette Pearse) is a rising journalist covering sex and pop culture at a hip indie website, whose fateful encounter one night with Samar (Amanda Babaei Vieira) — a queer Afghan woman living in Greece after a harrowing escape from the Taliban — lights the spark for a brief but explosive affair. That romance exposes the fault lines between their conflicting cultures, with Maya — a young, liberal Westerner whose freewheeling lifestyle is propped up by her unexamined privilege — coming face to face with a woman for whom even love is an act of resistance.”
‘Maya and Samar’ Filmmaker Tells a Story of Repression
According to Doron, the central relationship of Maya and Samar is “not just an affair; it is a reckoning that holds a mirror up to the illusions of the savior, and to the truths we prefer avoiding.”
To make the movie, the production crew talked to many refugees about their own personal experience, adding some to the film as cultural consultants to ensure the film’s accuracy as much as possible. Producer Laura Lanktree, who is no stranger to controversial productions after working on David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future, said of the journey:
“All of those stories were incredibly important to us as we started into this production. We wanted to make sure that we were really honoring the truth of what it was like for these Afghans living in Athens.”
When it comes to the explicit scenes that have earned the movie its NC-17 rating, star Pearse explained that filming those scenes was something that had no boundaries, and she and costar Vieira had “full control” over how they played out the intimate scenes. She said:
“We had full control over how our characters would express their desire. There was an environment where we had freedom and we had control. There was a sacred space carved out for us to make this what we wanted it to be.”
“In terms of the representation of queer love, I think over the last few years…we’ve seen an increasing amount of more mainstream LGBTQ love stories,” Lanktree noted. “But particularly when it’s lesbian love, it continues to be portrayed through a male lens. So much about Samar’s life is about oppression. But she had agency in those moments [with Maya]. She was choosing to be free and give her love.”
“Ever since I started making films, I’ve been waiting and dying to tell stories where female sexuality is not a decoration or titillation for the audience, but it’s a story from within the experience and the characters,” added Doron. “[Maya and Samar’s love] is chaotic and poetic and, it’s alive.”
Maya and Samar premieres at the Thesseloniki Film Festival on November 4.