Ali G: Who Iz I? Opens in UK Cinemas on 23 October, With a Campaign Urging Venues Not to Show It

Sacha Baron Cohen's 'Ali G: Who Iz I?' opens in UK cinemas on Friday 23 October. Rolling Stone UK calls it the Amazon MGM Studios film and says it marks Baron Cohen's feature directorial debut. The character first appeared on Channel 4's The 11 O'Clock Show in 1998, The People's Movies notes.

The campaign

Variety reported in late August that NewsCord, a media-monitoring platform, was urging cinemas worldwide to refuse the film, and that it said it had been told to send more than 36,000 emails. The People's Movies, a day earlier, gave the figure as more than 34,000. Critics on social media had called the character outdated after the trailer, Variety reported.

What Picturehouse said

The People's Movies, which says Picturehouse runs 25 UK cinemas, reported the chain as refusing to screen the film. Variety says Picturehouse replied to a NewsCord email that it did not currently have plans to screen the film on release, that it understands this was a standard response to queries about films the chain has not booked, and that no decision has been made. Variety also quotes Phil Clapp of the UK Cinema Association, in general terms: cinemas are not there to act as censors or arbiters of public taste, and where a film has a BBFC certificate they decide whether to play it with their own audience in mind.

All of this coverage is from late August. We found nothing newer on whether any chain has since booked or dropped the film, and no BBFC certificate had been published in the reports we read.

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