This Film is Not Yet Rated - Censorship Uncensored
12 02 2008Lee Wanyu|wanyuu@gmail.com
the ridge transmedia
A NUSSU Publication
Feb. 12, 2008
Picture Credit: http://www.frugalyankee.com/
Say “censorship” and many will think of various times when films were either banned, or sent to the cutting room before being screened in cinemas.
From Singapore Rebel by Martyn See, a 26-minute documentary film about Dr. Chee Soon Juan from Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) that was meant for the Singapore International Film Festival (SIFF) in 2005; to the more recent Lust, Caution by Lee Ang, which sparked much debate over the nine minutes of explicit sexual scenes that were cut and shown first as a NC16 film, and uncut as a R21 film after – the Media Development Authority (MDA) has faced various opinions regarding censorship processes and guidelines.
In this talk, This Film is Not Yet Rated - Censorship Uncensored, organized by art house cinema The Picturehouse, attempts were made to shed some light on the whole film rating process.
Held on a Friday night in The Picturehouse Lounge, a surprising large number of people turned up. Speakers of the session included major players in the industry like Mr. Vijay Chandran, Chairman of Films Consultative Panel (FCP), and Ken Kwek, a freelance writer who is also a cinematographer and cameraman.
During the talk, the audience was first enlightened on how the films are being classified. The films are sent by the distributor (together with the preferred rating) to MDA, Board of Film Censors (BFC) which will rate the films according to the classification system:
 |
General |
 |
Parental Guidance |
 |
No Children below 16 years old |
 |
Mature 18 for persons 18 years and above |
 |
Restricted to persons 21 years and above |
When they are not able to come to a consensus within themselves, the Films Consultative Panel (FCP), a panel formed in 1982 with 65 members from a cross-section of society consisting of various age groups, races, religions, marital status and professions, come together. In this case, there is the use of “gut feeling” instead of relying only on rules to review and classify the film once more, explained Mr. Vijay.
If the distributor is not satisfied with the rating decision, he can appeal to the Films Appeal Committee, whereby the decision made there will be final.
The whole process usually takes about two to three weeks.
The more interesting parts of the talk came when Kwek accounted his experience with the BFC when they tried to screen a documentary film in 2006, The Ballad of Vicki and Jake, a film about a heroine addict and her 11-year old son struggling to overcome adversities in their life.
Three weeks before the planned screening, MDA decided not to give them the green light because of a scene that showed a character smoking a crackpot, and labeled the scene “instructive”. MDA wanted a total of 4 minutes of the film to be cut out, which was not possible due to the pressing release date, not to mention artistically.
According to Kwek, it was a perfectly legitimate reason, but the guidelines are sweeping and unclear, with no specific rules on which scenes or dialogues are not to be created or filmed. This resulted in distress, both economically when all the posters and advertising for the film were already made, and emotionally for his group of filmmakers, when their hard work requested by MDA to be cut and edited within a very tight timeframe.
In the same vein, Kwek highlighted the fact that there seemed to be an inconsistency in the classification. An example he gave was Protégé (2007), in which there was a scene of woman injecting heroine but it was, unexpectedly, allowed on screen.
To this, Mr. Vijay’s response was to point out what may seem a short time between Ken’s film and Protégé – a time-span of one year – changes could have been made to the guidelines. However, Mr. Vijay himself, and his board, had not seen Ken’s film at all. Meaning, the film did not even pass through his panel, which was supposed to deal with films with such grey areas.
Filmmaker Martyn See, 37, even though not an invited speaker, was present as one of the audiences at the forum. He too, spoke of his experience of having his infamous film, Singapore Rebel banned, and the making of which also resulted in a 15-month-long police investigation due to its political content (a majority of its content focuses Dr. Chee Soon Juan from SDP).
Apparently, after subsequent tries of submitting other films (also politically-sensitive) to MDA and asking of when the film will be approved, he was told that “local productions tend to take a longer time to process than foreign ones.” Furthermore, the process can only start after the filmmaker submits another letter indicating the public screening dates, venues, target audience and purpose of screening. This was another question that was left hanging in the air without a proper explanation to why it was the case. In reply, Mr. Vijay said he was very sorry for what happened, and said that many films come in each day, and the MDA really tries very hard to meet all the deadlines as far as possible.
Mr. Vijay, despite trying his utmost best to answer the ever-piling questions, could not answer all of them as only around 5% or lesser of the films that are to be classified will go through his panel.
Upon checking the MDA website, this writer finds that the questions he answered were very general ones whose answers were available on the FAQ section of the website.
It was strange how MDA did not send a person from the BFC, who will have much more to share on how the classification and banning works. When questioned, a spokesperson from The Picturehouse stated that MDA decided that a person from FCP, that is, Mr. Vijay would be the best person to represent them in the dialogue.
As a parent, says Mr. Vijay, to argue over whether a film should be banned or cut is not the primary concern, nor should the strict censorship for the teenagers (NC16, M18) be the thing to fret about. Stressing on the role of the parent, Mr. Vijay was of the opinion that it should be the parent(s) who filter what children view as a film that is classified as PG does not necessarily make it suitable for a 6-year old child.
After the dialogue, despite it creating even more questions for one, a clearer picture of what the local independent filmmakers are going through was revealed.
As Kwek commented, the MDA does not seem to be making things easier for them by being unable to provide a consistent, unambiguous guideline that applies to all films, without double standards. However, this suggestion may not be fully feasible, simply because the artistic merit of a film will be compromised and constrained with such stringent classification. It will be ideal for MDA to find a middle ground and build a mutually beneficial relationship with local film industry in order to truly fulfill the vision of Singapore becoming a city for the arts.
Hot Talk!