German distributor Senator Film looks set to pull its March 9 release of Butterfly -A Grimm Love Story (Rohtenburg), after a court in Kassel granted Armin Meiwes a temporary injunction on Friday preventing the film being shown on German screens.

The so-called “Cannibal of Rotenburg”, Meiwes has taken out legal proceedings against the film’s production company Atlantic Streamline claiming that Martin Weisz’s film, starring Keri Russell and Thomas Kretschmann, was a “slavish re-enactment of events” and that he had not given permission for the US production company to fictionalise his story.

In its ruling, the upper state court upheld Meiwes’ complaint that the film unjustifiably infringed his personal rights and said that these outweighed the right to artistic freedom pleaded by Atlantic Streamline. (In January, Meiwes’ application for an injunction was initially turned down by the Kassel court)

In 2004, Meiwes had been jailed for eight-and-half years for manslaughter, but a retrial began in January of this year after Germany’s Supreme Court ruled the original judgement was too lenient.

Senator had planned to release the film on 70 - 80 prints and said ahead of the court’s decision that it would appeal if the judgement went in favour of Meiwes.

Meanwhile, theGerman weekly magazine Focus reported that Meiwes’ lawyer Harald Ermel is apparently considering taking out proceedings to stop a theatrical release later in 2006 of Rosa von Praunheim’ scannibal film DeinHerz In Meinem Hirn, which had its world premiere at the Hof Film Dayslast October and was also shown at this year’s Rotterdam International Film Festival.