Cannes' Pictures of Resistance Stir Up Political Rows

Political rows erupted at the Cannes film festival yesterday as censors in Beijing rejected for domestic screening a Chinese film in competition for the Palme d'Or, and Ken Loach, the director of The Wind that Shakes the Barley, launched an attack on the British government's recent actions in Iraq.

The Wind that Shakes the Barley, also in the main competition, is set during Britain's repression of the Irish after the 1918 election, and Loach compared the film's subject matter to the situation in Iraq. "The film is a story of a struggle for independence. This kind of story reoccurs throughout history, with armies of occupation being resisted. I don't need to tell you where the British army is now, with all the casualties, brutalities, and tragedies that emanate from that."

The screenwriter, Paul Laverty, said it was vital to confront the "true underbelly" of Britain's colonial past, pointing out that the history of atrocities visited on the Irish by the Black and Tans and the Auxiliaries was relatively little known in Britain. "If we knew our history properly, we would not be able to ignore the lies about Iraq."

Loach denied the film was anti-British, because "the British people were subject to the same kind of politics as the people of Ireland". He said: "Churchill was one of the people sending in the Black and Tans, but he also sent the army in to quash Welsh miners. He was very indiscriminate about where to send troops if his class interests were at stake."

Meanwhile, the film Summer Palace, directed by Lou Ye, is already tipped for success in the main festival competition, particularly in a year when the president and one member of the jury are Chinese.

The film was submitted to the festival before being passed by Beijing officials. But on Tuesday censors denied their approval, and now the Chinese producers of the film have flown back to Beijing to plead with the cinema bureau, missing its premiere last night. The central characters of Summer Palace are students at Beijing university who meet in 1989 in a heady atmosphere of increasing sexual liberation and political openness. The Tiananmen Square demonstrations provide the climactic centre of the film, as the lovers' emotions intensify.

If that were not taboo enough for Chinese officials, the film also contains at least eight sex scenes.

Lou Ye, whose previous films include the Shanghai-set Suzhou River (made in 2000), said: "I will make any compromise possible to make sure this film can be seen in China ... I would agree to remove any of the scenes that they want me to." Asked why he had chosen to confront the Tiananmen Square events, and whether he personally had been involved, he said: "In 1989 I was a student in Bejing and was myself going through a love story."

He added: "During shooting, I always forget about what's banned and what's allowed. Now it has become an issue and I will have to find a way of improving my way of working."

He said that a synopsis of the film had been submitted to the censors' office in 2004, and that "normally on that basis, a film can be approved".