OLIVER STONE'S Oscar nominated film Nixon was unexpectedly pulled from Mexican cinemas yesterday, days after the film director expressed support for Zapatista rebels during a trip to southern Mexico.
Film distributors said Nixon - first shown in Mexico cinemas on March 8th - was taken off screens because of low attendance. They denied that its removal was linked to Stone's backing for rebels in the southern state of Chiapas.
"Cinemas didn't like it . . . because of low turnout," a spokesman for Columbia pictures told Mexico's La Reforma newspaper.
But La Reforma reported that Interior Ministry officials in the Chiapas capital of Tuxtla Gutierrez confiscated footage by television cameramen of Stone's trip to rebel held territory earlier this week.
"They said nothing should be published about his trip to Chiapas," an unidentified source told La Reforma.
Stone spent three days in Chiapas, riding on a mule deep into the Lacandon jungle with the Zapatista leader, Subcomandante Marcos, wearing a black ski mask given to him by the guerrilla fighter.
During his stay he severely criticised Mexico's government for its treatment of indigenous peasants in Chiapas, saying they lived "under a regime of terror".