Stockholm Film Festival poster banned for using Pedro Almodóvar's lactating nipple image

Pedro Almodóvar's most recent movie, Parallel moms, has quite the eye-catching (heh) poster. The graphic poster has an eye shape containing a lactating nipple in it. This naturally was against Instagram and Facebook rules, so when the poster was published on the platform it was immediately removed. The eye design, while using only the spot color red, is a nod to many things that came before it as the graphic art style evokes a bygone era when color was a limited choice. It even references an iconic scene in An Andalusian Dog, the film that Buñuel shot with Salvador Dalí. Javier Jaén, the designer, explained this when the poster was removed from his own Instagram account.

Now Stockholm Film festival, which proudly has Almodóvar's film as the flagship event, can't even show the eye-nipple poster in Sweden either. 

"This year's theme at the festival is Motherhood, so we thought it was appropriate to make our own take on Almodóvar's film poster. When trying to silence women's voices, it is extra important to assert this artistic freedom."

Instagram and Facebook had to back off after fans protested the removal of the poster on their platforms, and eventually allowed it. To which the Almodóvar responded;

 

Thank you to everyone who protested against the insanity of banning a female nipple. Algorithms have neither reason nor heart and should not be allowed to decide what is obscene.

And today, Stockholm Film festival responded to the controversy with this new poster:

"Here we were supposed to have an image of a nipple, but we weren't allowed to show it" the headline reads, and directs you to the QR code which will bring you to the Stockholm International Film Festival website where the nipple can be seen. You just can't stop a lactating nipple these days. 

On the bright side, it's entirely possible that lactating-nipple-gate will bring more people to see "Parallel Mothers", which looks to be a classic Almodóvar.