A second cinema chain has banned a new gang film from its venues after a mass brawl broke out at a showing in Birmingham.
Around 100 people were involved in the incident which took place during a screening of Blue Story at the Star City cinema on Saturday evening.
Police officers inside the Star City cinema in Birmingham (Police handout/Rachel Allison/PA
Police were called following reports of youths with machetes.
Five teenagers were arrested including a 13-year-old girl, and seven officers sustained injuries at the scene, police said.
READ MORE: Blue Story director defends gang film after machete brawl in cinema
Showcase Cinemas has now pulled the film Blue Story from its listings, following on from Vue, which will no longer be showing the film at any of its 91 UK venues.
The move comes as Blue Story’s writer and director, Andrew Onwubolu, condemned the incident and said that his film was about “love not violence”.
Onwubolu, also known as Rapman, described the incident as “truly unfortunate” and said he hoped it was not an “indictment” of the film.
Writing on Instagram on Sunday afternoon, he said: “Sending love to all those involved in yesterday’s violence at Star City in Birmingham.
READ MORE: Film View: Blue Story (15)**
“It’s truly unfortunate that a small group of people can ruin things for everybody. Bluestory is a film about love not violence.”
The film focuses on two friends from different south London postcodes, on rival sides of a street war.
It is rated 15 for very strong language, strong violence, threat, sex, and drug misuse.
Onwubolu added: “I pray that we can all learn to live with love and treat each other with tolerance and respect.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel