Teacher Facing Discipline Over Movie : Education: “Quest for Fire”, an R-rated film with sex and cannibalism scenes was screened for seventh-grade social studies class.

School officials are considering disciplinary action against a teacher who showed an edited version of “Quest for Fire,” an R-rated caveman movie with sex and cannibalism scenes, to a seventh-grade social studies class.

The Conejo Valley Unified School District learned of the screening at the Sequoia Intermediate School after parents complained, a school official said Friday.

The 1982 movie was not approved by a district committee that normally reviews all sex education films, said Richard Simpson, an assistant superintendent for instructional services.

Simpson said it should have been submitted to that committee because of scenes revealing nudity, even though it was not intended as a sex education film. He also said parents should have been told that the film would be shown.

The film apparently was shown in connection with lessons on history and social science.

The scenes in the edited version shown to the classroom included “scenes of violence. There are scenes that suggest cannibalism. There are scenes that suggest sexual activity,” Simpson said.

District officials will decide what action to take against the teacher next week, he said.

Because the incident is a personnel matter, Simpson declined to name the teacher. But parents identified him as Clint Dillon, a social studies instructor who has been at the school for two years. Dillon declined to be interviewed.

Two teachers showed a different, edited-for-television version of the film to two 10th-grade world history classes at Newbury Park High School, Principal Charles Eklund said.

“Quest for Fire” was directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud and stars actors Ron Perlman and Rae Dawn Chong as prehistoric lovers. Movie critics lauded the French-Canadian film for its special effects, calling it one of the most realistic portrayals of a caveman and his search for fire.

But the special effects disturbed parents of Sequoia school children, eight of whom complained to the school district, Simpson said.

Teresa Muse, 37, whose 12-year-old daughter Danielle saw the movie along with a class of about 30, said she was shocked by her daughter’s graphic description of dismemberment, violence and nudity.

“There was this man and this woman and they were naked and tied up and hanging upside down. The man’s arm was ripped off and a group of cannibals was eating his arm,” Muse said. “When she came home, she was sick to her stomach. This movie really bothered her.”

Other parents told Muse that their children also described the film as sickening, and one child had nightmares of cannibals, Muse said.