Rumours are currently circulating on various blogs and microbloggig site Twitter regarding whether the much-hyped English-language adaptation of the film version of bestselling novel The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo has been banned in the UAE.

After speaking with Kifah Ghraizi, operations manager at Empire, the UAE distributor of the movie, we can reveal that it actually did make it past the censors here. ‘We were asked to make seven or eight cuts to the film, which amounted to about three or four minutes. All of the removed scenes contained nudity or of a sexual nature - no material was removed for religious or political reasons,' Ghraizi explains.

‘However [director] David Fincher himself was not happy with the edits and has forbidden the film to be shown in the new format.'

The US filmmaker is renowned for box office smashes such as The Social Network and Fight Club.

For the record, Ghraizi tells us the film is fantastic.