Moore’s film keeps R rating
Published 9:00 pm Tuesday, June 22, 2004
LOS ANGELES – Michael Moore and his distributors lost their appeal Tuesday to lower the R rating for “Fahrenheit 9/11,” his scathing assault on President Bush’s actions before and after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Lions Gate Films and IFC Films, the movie’s distributors, said an appeals board for the Motion Picture Association of America rejected their request to reduce the rating to PG-13.
The R rating prohibits those 17 and younger from seeing “Fahrenheit 9/11” without an adult.
The movie, which won the top honor at last month’s Cannes Film Festival, was rated R for “violent and disturbing images and for language.”
Tom Ortenberg, president of Lions Gate Films, had argued to the appeals board that 15- and 16-year-olds should be free to see the film on their own because they could end up in military service in Iraq in the next few years.
