A fashion photo shoot staged at the Santa Maria Addolorata Cemetery and televised on TVM has prompted the broadcasting watchdog to take action because the feature was "in bad taste".
Broadcasting Authority CEO Pierre Cassar said a charge had been issued against Public Broadcasting Services Ltd over the programme Venere. He said people felt the photo shoot was offensive.
The authority will hear the case on Tuesday.
Adrian Mizzi, the artistic director and co-producer of the programme defended the shoot: "The concept of the TV series is to give a candid behind-the-scenes glance at producing an artistic photo shoot."
Mr Mizzi said he was "very surprised" by reactions from the people who were offended, shocked or hurt by the programme.
The aim of the shoot, he said, was to illustrate the balance between life and death using gothic architecture. The cemetery was "a perfect backdrop" for that.
"Our first choice was the Addolorata Cemetery and we found absolutely no difficulty from the management to get the necessary permit. We didn't desecrate the tombs by doing the shoot there, on the contrary. In fact various members of our team, including myself, have relatives buried in this very cemetery and none of us took any offence," he said.
He added that perhaps the management "understood perfectly well what we were doing there, unlike some commentators who may have missed or misinterpreted our intentions".
"Art is meant to be criticised and we accept all criticism - positive and negative. What we find difficult to accept is narrow-mindedness and useless complaints from people who did not even see the programme or the photos."
He pointed out this was not the first time that films, television series and other artistic works had been shot at the cemetery.
"So was it the female models that caused this stir, I ask?
Would it have caused the same reaction if we were shooting male actors?"
The first public complaint about the programme came from Judge Joseph Galea Debono, who wrote a letter to The Times saying he was "shocked" by the feature.
"Tartly clad young women were cavorting and posing on the parvis of the neo-Gothic style church at the top of the cemetery and in front of private interment chapels and beside family tombstones. Who got this great idea of using a cemetery for the backdrop for this charade?"
Raymond Bencini, in another letter, agreed that "a total lack of respect was shown to the resting place of our dearly beloved loved ones".
The incident also prompted a discussion on timesofmalta.com and the Venere Facebook group, where some people argued the shoot was not offensive and simply served to bring out the beauty of the Gothic location.
One commentator said: "The dead are far beyond caring about anything."
More items in the News section