According to The Hollywood Reporter, Sony Pictures Classics won an appeal to the Classification and Rating Appeals Board, which Thursday downgraded the R rating originally assigned to Joyeux Noel (Merry Christmas) for "some war violence and brief nudity" to a PG-13. SPC co-president Michael Barker and Christian Carion, who directed the film about a Christmas Eve truce during World War I, presented statements to the board, while CARA was repped by chairman Joan Graves. SPC is releasing the film, an Oscar nominee for best foreign-language film, today in New York. Carion said: "It is important this film is PG-13 because it is a movie young people should see. It has a message of peace, not violence, which is very important nowadays, especially for our youth."