Diary of a Weak Yogi finally released in cinemas after 30 years Dutch art-house film Diary of a Weak Yogi, shelved for over 30 years due to explicit content and lead actor's suicide, finally gets theatrical release in 2025. The Dutch art-house movie Diary of a Weak Yogi has finally reached cinemas more than 30 years after it was made. The black-and-white film, directed by Pim de la Parra and Ronaldo la Silva, was first screened at an independent film festival in 1993 but never made it to theatres due to its explicit content and a production tragedy. Now, it has been released theatrically, though director de la Parra died three years ago and never saw it happen. The film centres on two seemingly happy couples whose relationships unravel as jealousy, sexual frustration and resentment creep in. Derek, a university professor played by Kamaran Abdulla, is married to Audrey, a successful novelist played by Manouk van der Meulen. Their friends Robert, a painter preparing for an exhibition in Rotterdam, and his wife Loes, a motorcycle mechanic, appear equally settled. As the four spend more time together, tensions emerge and they swap partners, leading to provocative encounters involving sadomasochism and BDSM.The movie goes beyond conventional romantic scenes. It includes disturbing sequences such as Derek being violently whipped by a crowd dressed in bondage gear, and another scene shows Loes riding her racehorse naked. The film also features extreme nudity, which, along with the suicide of actor Kamaran Abdulla just days after filming ended, shocked the conservative Dutch Film Fund.The Dutch Film Fund refused to provide the money needed to complete production. Without completion funds, the filmmakers could not carry out basic finishing work, including adding the soundtrack and opening and closing credits. De la Parra and la Silva eventually won lawsuits against the Film Fund, with courts ordering it to pay the grant money. Despite the rulings, the fund did not pay up, and the unfinished film remained stuck in limbo.The film's release was also clouded by tragic circumstances. Abdulla, who played Derek, died by suicide aged just 34, only days after filming had wrapped. The Dutch-Iraqi artist's death sent shockwaves through the production and cast a long shadow over the controversial movie.In a recent interview, director Paul Ruven, who contributed to the film and secured its release this year, revealed that Abdulla agreed to play the leading role just one day before filming was meant to start. Ruven said he called Abdulla around midnight for the role. Abdulla was willing, but he had just called his parents in Iraq to tell them he was going to commit suicide. According to Ruven, as far as Abdulla was concerned, the suicide could wait until after filming. Because of that, Kamaran felt no shame whatsoever, because he would not be around anymore when the reviews came out. No other actor Ruven knows would expose himself like that.For decades, Diary of a Weak Yogi remained an almost forgotten piece of Dutch cinema. But more than three decades later, filmmaker Paul Ruven finally brought it to the big screen. It was, he said, part of a promise made to his friend de la Parra, and a chance to finally give audiences a glimpse of Abdulla's last, raw leading performance.Diary of a Weak Yogi is not the only European film to run into issues for its explicit content. French soft-porn movie Emmanuelle was released in 1974 and shocked viewers with its steamy scenes and focus on a woman's voyage of erotic discovery. Following the life of teen Emmanuelle as she moves overseas to distant Bangkok, forsaking her marriage vows before she has even touched down by having two sexual encounters with strangers on the way over, the film caused a stir upon its release. Deemed unacceptable to British taste, tasteless, and extremely problematic, the scandalous cult-classic was slammed in France for its striking representation of female sexuality.The film broke several taboos of its time, including showing masturbation, having multiple sexual partners, and having sex with anonymous people. Despite the controversy, Emmanuelle was a box office sensation, selling nearly nine million tickets in France alone after being initially banned by French censors. Becoming the first adult film to play in regular British theatres, the film went down in history as a landmark production and was one of the first French films to become a global phenomenon. Although the movie was watched by 50 million people around the world and played on the Champs-Elysees for a decade after its release, Emmanuelle had an overall negative reception. The censors and critics of the time were left fairly appalled by what some of the scenes entailed, from implied thrusting to an entire sequence showing a night club act in which a woman smokes a cigarette with her vagina, which the British Board of Film Classification later deleted. Mainstream French audiences, however, lapped up the movie and its steamy contents, but the BBFC was left unconvinced that sex films were of great significance or importance to viewers. As Stephen Murphy, Secretary of the BBFC, said in a letter addressed to several local councils: With the best will in the world, we were unable to see it in these terms. It struck us as a sex film quite outstandingly well photographed and edited but still containing material which, to our minds, would be unacceptable to British taste.The release of Diary of a Weak Yogi after more than 30 years highlights the enduring challenges faced by filmmakers dealing with explicit content and financial hurdles. It also serves as a tribute to the perseverance of its creators and the tragic story of its lead actor.