Paolo Branco, the prolific Paris-based Portuguese producer, is attracting attention for all the wrong reasons these days.

This week it emerged that he is being sued by AGRIF, a citizens' group in favour of French identity and Christian values. Branco goes to the high court on Tuesday (August 21) to answer charges that the title of his film This Is My Body (Ceci Est Mon Corps) is offensive to Catholics. Earlier this month the Rome-based producer-director Jon Jost took him to task over the Venice-selected film Agua E Sul.

AGRIF has no problem with the content of My Body, the story of a brilliant young man who rejects the career path that had been mapped out for him. But it argues that the title - taken from the Catholic liturgy - is offensive. And it is seeking to have Branco's Gemini Films remove all offending posters.

Branco told AFP that he found it "terrifying" to be faced with "a censorship based on [religious] fundamentalism."

Jost's accusations are equally sensitive. He is threatening to file charges of child abuse and fraud against Branco and his Portuguese outfit Madragoa Filmes. He claims that Branco has no contract to feature his daughter Clara Jost in the film made by his estranged wife Teresa Villaverde.

Jost, who says Villaverde genuinely kidnapped Clara last November and made her appear in a film about child kidnapping, has attempted to stop Agua E Sal screening at Venice. Venice's chief selector Alberto Barbera has rejected Jost's pleas to withdraw the film: "I don't see how the exclusion of the film from the programme of Venice should help Clara. We decided to invite the film on the pure basis of its artistic qualities."

But Branco's legal wranglings are unlikely to stop there. He is now threatening to launch a libel suit of his own against Jost and leading Italian daily newspaper La Repubblica over remarks about the sources and applications of Branco's film funding.