Woody Allen's next film, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, is skipping London for Barcelona. It's also stars Allen muse Scarlett Johansson and two newcomers to the auteur's world: Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem. And if that wasn't enough... word is that the movie will include a Penelope Cruz-Scarlett Johansson sex scene and a threesome with Javier Bardem.

But despite all that salaciousness, the movie's first controversy is a linguistic one.

Authorities in Barcelona are forbidding The Weinstein Company from distributing the film in Spanish. Barcelonan audiences will have the choice of either watching the film in English with Catalan subtitles, or viewing a version that's been dubbed into Catalan.

Both Cruz and Bardem, of course, are Spanish speakers. Elsewhere in Spain, the movie will be shown in English with Spanish subtitles. It's all due to the Catalan-promoting policies of the regional government:

The regional government recently announced a E7.4m (GBP5.9m) film fund to promote Catalan cinema. It also gave a grant of €15,000 to a soft porn producer for three "erotic films" as they would promote the Catalan language. But despite generous public funding, the 12 Catalan language features produced last year were watched by just 0.8 percent of the region's 24 million cinemagoers.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona's co-producer, Jaume Roures, is a dedicated Catalan nationalist.