MANILA, Philippines – The French Film Festival in Manila, now in its 14th year, has hit a snag with the local censors.

One of the films, Benoit Jacquot’s “À Tout de Suite (Right Now),” was rated X by the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB).

Martin Macalintal, audio-visual attaché of the French Embassy, said “A Tout de Suite”—an entry in the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival in 2004—was thus rated because of frontal nudity and sex scenes.

Another French film that almost got banned was Michael Haneke’s “Le Pianiste.” The censors passed it, Macalintal said, on condition that it will be screened only once (June 11).

Macalintal noted that the concept of this year’s fest, currently running at the Shangri-La Plaza mall, is “to bring Cannes to Manila.”

Also featured in the 10-day event are Filipino films screened in this year’s Cannes, to be shown on June 12, RP Independence Day.

Centerpiece of this tribute is the local premiere of Raya Martin’s “Independencia,” an entry in this year’s Un Certain Regard.

Macalintal said organizers had planned to premiere “Kinatay,” which won the Best Director prize for Brillante Mendoza in Cannes last month, but they were sure it would encounter problems with the MTRCB.

Mendoza earlier told the Philippine Daily Inquirer (parent company of INQUIRER.net) that he would allow a local screening only if the censors didn’t touch his movie.

In lieu of “Kinatay,” the fest picked Mendoza’s “Serbis,” Philippine entry in the Main Competition of last year’s Cannes.