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Indonesia Probes Director over Bali 'Gigolo' Film

Kompas.com - 30/04/2010, 03:36 WIB

JAKARTA, KOMPAS.com - Indonesian police said Thursday an Indian filmmaker is under investigation over a documentary exposing alleged male prostitution on the resort island of Bali. The probe came as police released 28 “beach boys” who had been detained earlier in the week on suspicion of prostitution with foreign female tourists, after clips from the documentary went viral on the Internet.

The documentary, “Cowboys in Paradise” by Singapore-based writer and director Amit Virmani, sparked outrage among Bali tourism officials when it was released at a film festival in South Korea earlier this month. Police said they were checking whether Virmani violated immigration rules when he made the film, which officials have angrily condemned as an attack on Bali’s image as a family-orientated, “spiritual” tourism destination.

“We’re now gathering evidence to see if the filmmaker broke any of the country’s laws,” Bali police spokesman Gede Sugianyar said.

“We’ll check if he used a working visa or a tourist visa to enter Bali and if he had obtained a permit from the Bali authorities to make the film.” If convicted Virmani could face a year in jail and a fine of 40 million rupiah (4,440 dollars) for breaching the country’s Law on Films.

Three of the so-called “beach cowboys” interviewed in the documentary about their liaisons with foreign tourists had complained to police that they had been “cheated” about the purpose of the film, Sugianyar said.

“The filmmaker said he was making clips for his personal collection, not a documentary,” Sugianyar said. He added that police could find “no  dications” that the detained men were “gigolos”, and had released them with a warning not to harass tourists.

Filmmaker Virmani could not be reached for comment.

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