KIDS, an American independent film dealing with teenage sex which was the subject of a substantially phoney controversy in the US last year, has been passed uncut by the film censor, Sheamus Smith.

Directed by photographer Larry Clark, Kids, proved much less visually explicit than the advance publicity suggested when it turned up in Cannes last year, although it employs remarkably candid dialogue for its pseudo fly on the wall view of teenage sex and drug taking in New York. The film will be screened at the Dublin festival before it goes on release here.