Streaming platform Mubi has canceled a four-day film festival in Istanbul to protest the Turkish city’s banning of the new Luca Guadagnino-directed film Queer.

Mubi acquired international distribution right for Queer earlier this year, as Deadline noted, and had planned to screen the film as part of its Mubi Fest Istanbul 2024. But, according to a post on the platform’s Turkish Instagram account, organizers learned hours before the festival’s November 7 opening that the film had been banned.

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The film is based on gay author William S. Burroughs’s 1985 novel.

“The decision states that the movie is banned because it contains provocative content that would endanger the peace of the society and that the ban would be implemented for security reasons,” the post reads, according to Deadline.

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Out director Guadagnino’s film is an adaptation of out author William S. Burroughs’s 1985 novella about recovering heroin addict Lee, a queer American expat living in 1950s Mexico City. The film stars Daniel Craig as Lee and Outer Banks’ Drew Starkey as the much younger Allerton, a discharged American Navy serviceman with whom Craig’s character becomes obsessed.

The film is set for a limited U.S. release on November 27, and has already garnered positive reviews from critics since its world premiere at this year’s Venice International Film Festival.

“We believe this ban is an intervention that restricts art and freedom of expression,” Mubi’s post continues. “This ban takes not just one movie away but also the meaning and purpose of the entire festival. Mubi wants to take the stance that our audience expects from us and we regret to inform you that we have taken the decision to cancel the entire Mubi Fest Istanbul.”

The post also noted that the festival, which was set to run through November 10, had already sold out after months of preparation and a successful 2023 run.

This is not the first time Turkish censorship has led to the cancelation of a film festival in recent years. Organizers were forced to cancel the 2023 Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival amid controversy over a documentary that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan characterized as “propaganda that undermines our national sovereignty.”

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