Writer Michel Houellebecq could not ban the release of a porn film with his participation

French writer Michel Houellebecq failed to legally ban the release of a film in which he has sex with women, The Guardian reports. The Amsterdam District Court rejected the legal complaint of Houellebecq and his wife Qianyun Lisis, who demanded to restrict the distribution of the film made by the Dutch art group KIRAC.

KIRAC (Keeping It Real Art Critics) is the name of a group that includes artists Stefan Ruitenbeck, Kate Sinha and Tarik Saduma. Since 2016, they have been shooting short films for their YouTube channel, in which they expose the world of contemporary art to a satirical view. The idea of the film KIRAC 27 with the participation of 67-year-old Houellebecq, according to the verdict of the court, was proposed to Ruitenbeck by Houellebecq's wife during a joint dinner in Paris in the fall of 2022. Shooting an experimental porn movie was supposed to dispel the gloomy mood in which the author of "Elementary Particles" was staying.

Houellebecq and Ruytenbeck discussed by email plans to create "a work of art in which the distinction between fiction and reality takes the form of playing with the malicious paranoia of your enemies." And on December 1, 2022, the writer arrived in Amsterdam and signed a consent to shoot in a film that "may or may not contain explicit content". The only prohibition that was stipulated was the display of Houellebecq and his genitals in one frame.

On December 23, three days before the scheduled end of filming, Houellebecq left the project. On his website, he wrote that he and the Dutch director turned out to have "radically opposite concepts of artistic creativity", and compared Ruitenbeck's methods with "dirty journalism."

In February, the art group posted a trailer for the film on its website, where you could see Houellebecq smoking and laughing, lying on a bed next to a woman in a nightgown while a voice-over says: "I told him that I know many girls in Amsterdam who would sleep with a famous writer out of curiosity".

In his court complaint, Houellebecq claimed that at the time of signing the agreement he was struggling with severe depression and drank several glasses of wine. However, the court rejected this objection due to the lack of a doctor's certificate confirming Houellebecq's condition, and doubted that the wine was drunk before, and not after the signing of the agreement. A little earlier, Houellebecq's complaint about the trailer posted online was rejected by a Paris court. The writer accused the creators of the trailer of causing damage to his personal life and honor, as well as spreading lies about his wife.

Due to the consideration of two court cases, the art group removed the trailer from its website and postponed the premiere of the film scheduled for March 11. Now, according to Ruitenbeck, the final version of the film, which included disagreements with Houellebecq, his star performer, will be released in May. "My aspiration has always been to create a complete work of art. I hope Michel is happy with the result", he says.

Recall that many critics consider Michel Houellebecq to be the best writer in France and one of the best European authors of the 21st century.