Emin fury at '18' certificate for teenage angst film

The artist Tracey Emin will challenge film censors after her movie debut, showing a teenage girl committing suicide by slitting her wrists, was given an adult-only certificate.

The artist Tracey Emin will challenge film censors after her movie debut, showing a teenage girl committing suicide by slitting her wrists, was given an adult-only certificate.

Emin had hoped the film, which premieres at the London Film Festival at 11.30pm tonight, would be seen by a broad audience. "I made this very personal film about teenage girls. I never in a million years thought that they would not be able to see it," she said.

Those plans have been scuppered by the decision of the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) to award the hour-long film, Top Spot, an "18" certificate because of concluding scenes in which a character kills herself.

Emin said she was furious that the BBFC decision would kill off the cinema audience for the film. "It's cruel. There's only three swear words, no violence and no flesh. People are telling me it's a crap film because it's not real and then this happens because it looks so real," she said.

"Girls are not going to watch this film and go, 'I want to do that [commit suicide].' They're going to want to go to art school and make a film. I didn't make this film for the bourgeois middle-class but for people like me who could get something from it. I would have got something from it at their age. These people are just so narrow-minded."

Emin and her distributor, Tartan Films, have said they will appeal against the decision, although there is no formal appeals procedure at the BBFC.

The film is similar in spirit to Emin's installation works, such as those she showed at Tate Britain when she was shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 1999. It has been described as a sometimes harrowing, sometimes funny story of teenage life in the seaside town of Margate, Kent, where Emin grew up. The title refers to a night-club in Margate once frequented by Emin.

She worked without a script with six young women, in their late teens and early twenties but playing girls of around 14 or 15, to develop the narrative. They talk about everything from their romantic fantasies to frank descriptions of losing their virginity. One of the characters, who suffers from a severe lack of self-esteem, eventually takes her own life by slitting her wrists.

Hamish McAlpine, of Tartan Films, said the censors' attitude to the sex talk and the suicide seemed illogical. "The BBFC has made a truly bizarre decision which is not in contextual keeping with other decisions they have made," he said. "Firstly, there is absolutely no sex or depiction of sex in the film, and I fail to see what references to sex made in this film are not suitable for a 15-year-old to hear.

"As this film strikes a very moral stance against the exploitation of teenagers, all references to sex in this film are intended to teach 15-year-olds of the dangers they face in an adult world. In my view, the screening of this film should be mandatory in all schools in the UK as offering a salutary lesson of the dangers and pitfalls that 15-year-olds face."

He said the theme of suicide was treated more dangerously in Sofia Coppola's movie The Virgin Suicides, where it was glamorised.

A BBFC spokeswoman said that the sex talk would have only warranted a "15" certificate. But she said that the board had taken expert advice because the 15- to 18-year-old age group, which could have seen the film under a lower rating, was regarded as particularly vulnerable to suicide. In the circumstances, the suicide was deemed "inappropriate".

It was unfair to compare Top Spot with The Virgin Suicides as only a bandaged wound is seen in the American movie, she added.