Cineworld Removes £12 Million Film Following Protests

UK cinema chain Cineworld has removed a ‘blasphemous’ film called The Lady of Heaven from its screenings list. Watch the trailer below:

Directed by Eli King, the £12 million movie is a historical epic about the prophet Muhammad’s daughter Fatimah, however, more than 117,000 people have signed a petition in a bid to get the film removed from all UK cinemas. 

The Lady of Heaven also claims to be the first-ever film to show the ‘face’ of the prophet Muhammad on screen. 

Islam prohibits the direct portrayal of religious figures, however as The Guardian notes, no single actor is credited with playing Muhammad and some faces are computer-generated, while Fatimah’s is always covered by a veil. 

According to the paper, Cineworld confirmed it had cancelled all The Lady of Heaven screenings to ‘ensure the safety of our staff and customers’.

On Sunday (5 June) Muslim news outlet 5Pillars tweeted a photo of what it claimed showed ‘200 Muslims protesting against sectarian hate film Lady of Heaven outside Cineworld in Broad Street, Birmingham’.

The Guardian reports that while one of the film’s producers said they ‘defend the rights of the protesters to express their displeasure’, it’s ‘silly and against British values’ to completely pull the film. 

Elsewhere, a House of Lords peer criticised screening cancellations as being ‘disastrous for the arts and dangerous for free speech’.

A Bolton screening of the film, which was released on 3 June, was cancelled after 100 protesters showed up at a local Cineworld.

The chair of the town’s mosque council encouraged cancellations, saying the film was ‘underpinned with a sectarian ideology and is blasphemous in nature to the Muslim community’.

LADbible has approached Cineworld for comment.

Meanwhile, rival cinema chain Vue – which still has screening of the film listed – told the paper in a statement: “Vue takes seriously the responsibilities that come with providing a platform for a wide variety of content and believes in showcasing films of interest to diverse communities across the UK.

“Vue will only show a film once the BBFC (the independent British Board of Film Classification) has assessed and rated a film. The Lady of Heaven has been BBFC accredited and is on show in a number of our cinemas.

“Decisions about how long a film remains on show are taken on a site-by-site basis and based on a variety of commercial and operational factors.”