Film Censorship Research Articles

“Found Objectionable”

AbstractI explore how film censorship has increasingly shaped film production and circulation at film festivals, public screenings, and theatrical releases in post‐2000 Turkey. I argue that film censorship in Turkey now works through two levels. First, through direct intervention, whereby state institutions continue to censor film production. Although the renaming of control commissions from previous decades via the 2004 “Cinema Law” creates the illusion that censorship boards have been abolished, fieldwork data proves otherwise. Secondly, state institutions designate various non‐state actors as proxies of the state and grant them well‐calculated power to employ on their behalf when necessary. I draw upon fieldwork data and case studies to analyze how the political climate in Turkey has suppressed cultural production, freedom of expression, and political resistance to the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government both through bans on artistic expression and processes of delegitimization, targeting, threats, and violence.

Film Censorship and Today’s Chinese Film Industry

Film Censorship and Today’s Chinese Film Industry

The Role of Transformational Leadership and Communication in Building Good Governance in Indonesia Film Censorship Institution

The Film Censorship Institute (LSF) is an institution that has the authority to determine which films are allowed. LSF authority is contained in Government Regulation No. 18 of 2014, where they play a role in protecting the public from negative films that can affect the cultural perspective of the community. LSF adapts to the social and cultural norms that apply in society, so if we look at film censorship institutions in other countries, the scope of films allowed is also different. For example, in the United States, films featuring sexual scenes are permitted, while in Malaysia, they are not. Likewise, films with sexual nuances and extreme violence are not allowed in Indonesia. LSF has also banned the screening of several films because they are not under social rules and norms. However, the work carried out by LSF is rarely known by the public, ranging from their working methods and institutional leadership to how they carry out their work programs. With this background, the author wants to know and understand the practice of good governance in Indonesia Censorship Film Institution and how the transformative approach is taken to bring about change in the organization. This study will use a qualitative approach with data collection through the Focus Group Discussion (FGD) method and literature. The study found that transformative leadership accelerates changes in the LSF by creating innovations for better performance and making an inclusive work culture. This transformative leadership also tremendously affects how LSF implements good governance principles, and all indicators have been fulfilled. The relation and effect of transformative leadership and good governance are also discussed.

Commemorating the Fascist Empire: The Public Memory of Rodolfo Graziani in Modern Italy

This essay will analyze the public memory of Italy’s most prominent colonial general, Rodolfo Graziani, in light of his recent commemoration in his hometown near Rome. During Graziani’s lifetime, fascist propaganda and censorship praised him as a colonial war “hero” and omitted the countless atrocities he committed during Italy’s colonial wars in Libya and Ethiopia in the 1920s and 1930s. As the colonial campaigns proved unanimously popular in fascist Italy, Graziani’s positive reputation was only jeopardised due to his polarising role as Chief of Staff in the Republic of Salò during Italy’s Civil War between 1943 and 1945. After the war, he was tried and acquitted for Nazi collaborationism whilst his colonial crimes went completely unquestioned, sparking grave consequences for the public memory of Italian fascism and colonialism. Since his death, neofascist parties and communities have persistently rehabilitated their “heroic” remembrance of Graziani through sites of memory which resulted in a publicly funded monument in 2012. The Italian government’s continued denial of Graziani’s colonial atrocities and censorship of foreign films in recent decades demonstrate the suppression of his colonial crimes and are reflective of the lack of public awareness and mass protest to Graziani’s recent monument. Whilst Ethiopian, British and American journalists met the news with public condemnation, the Italian press barely mentioned it and the only domestic protests to the commemoration came from directly affected communities and organisations. The essay will therefore contrast Graziani’s commemoration in Italy to counter memories of Graziani in Italy and abroad in order to analye that which has been publicly commemorated, contested, ignored and suppressed in postfascist and postcolonial Italy.

THE ROLE OF LSF INTERNAL MEDIA IN DISTRIBUTING INFORMATION ON THE GNBSM PROGRAM TO STAKEHOLDERS

Film Censorship Institute is an institution that carries out the task of determining the appropriate position for cinema films, television, soap operas and advertisements in Indonesia. Film or television show can only be screened if it is declared censored by the LSF. As a communication medium, film is a form foundation for educating the nation's, developing self-potential, fostering noble character, promoting public welfare, promotional platform to be protected from negative content that is inconsistent with Pancasila ideology. Therefore LSF emphasizes media literacy. Since September 2021, LSF has published GNBSM, which is a movement that has been developed by LSF so that people are proficient in choosing and sorting shows according to age classification. LSF expected to be able to synergize with stakeholders. Analytical method is a qualitative method, study uses observation and interview methods conducted by interviewing respondents from the LSF, Chair of the Appreciation and Promotion Sub-Commission, Chair of the Legal and Advocacy Sub-Commission, Chair of the Commission III, Secretary of Commission III. From the results of this study it was found that the internal media used by LSF in disseminating the GNBSM program to stakeholders were print media as magazines, social media as Instagram, Facebook, TikToK, Twitter, Youtobe.

The Eyes of Power: Intellectual Vision in Contemporary Chinese Local Film Censorship

As a socialist country with a large population, China has a tight censorship system in various visual fields, including film, television and online communities. To censor films, China’s central and local film authorities have successively established their own censorship systems. This article analyses the contemporary formation of local film censorship committees by combing through the history of film censorship in China. By discussing the relationship between intellectuals and the power behind film censorship, this study seeks to penetrate why and how intellectuals are co-opted by power and define the location of intellectuals in Chinese politics. Authorities reviewing films in a screening room symbolizes their ‘powerful’ gaze in the darkness, this visual mechanism of intellectual complicity with power, which requires Chinese filmmakers to learn how to survive under the combined influence of ‘self-censorship’ and intellectual vision. Furthermore, when exploring film censorship in contemporary China, the political logic of socialist China needs to be touched upon, where film censorship experts are in fact only the eyes of the power, not the power itself.

The Politics of Industry and the Wave of Nationalism: Exploring the Shanghai Film Guild, 1927–1930

In the mid to late 1920s, the Chinese film industry experienced a severe setback. Driven by the Ming Xing Film Company and the ‘Merchant Movement’, the Shanghai Film Guild was established in September 1927. It was the first filmmaking industry guild in the history of China. It was relatively outgoing in safeguarding the interests of the industry. It played an important role in maintaining the image of the industry, forcing the film censorship authority to revise its policies, and resisting those foreign films that insulted China. However, it did not form effective industry regulations to address industry autonomy. It did not change the vicious competition in the industry significantly, either. The establishment and operation of the guild was obviously affected by the wave of nationalism at the time, which caused it to perform more intensely in some situations.

Offensive Screens: The Italy-China Diplomatic Agreement (1936–37) and the Transnational Censorship of Films

Between late 1936 and early 1937 Italy and China became embroiled in a series of diplomatic exchanges about two controversial films. One was Abyssinia (dir. Kopalin, 1936), a Soviet documentary feature about Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia, whose screening in a Shanghai cinema triggered a riot in February 1937. The other was The General Died at Dawn (dir. Milestone, 1936), a Paramount melodrama set in 1920s war-torn China whose international exhibition in late 1936, including in Italy, was criticised by the Chinese government. This article describes the reactions of diplomats and of local pressure groups to the exhibition of these films and to their ‘offensive’ representations of Italian colonialism and of China’s internal politics and people. Research in classified diplomatic files shows the involvement of the Italian authorities in the organisation of a violent attack on the Isis cinema in Shanghai in February 1937, and provides rich detail about the inner workings of Fascist government officials in Rome and in Shanghai which could not be obtained from press reports alone. Both film cases foreground the limited power of intervention of national censorship boards and illustrate the types of actions and actors involved in transnational film exchanges where questions of national prestige or political authority are at stake. They also bear witness to a momentous time of geo-political transition and alliance-making in the lead-up to the Second World War.

Margarita, the Big Bad Wolf, and the film censor: film, feminism, and dictatorial repression in Spain

ABSTRACT This article studies the themes, techniques, and aesthetics of some of the student films that the Spanish filmmaker Cecilia Bartolomé made at the Escuela Oficial de Cinematografía (Official Film School, EOC) during the 1960s, framing them within the cinematographic currents and the cultural expressions of feminism in the national and international sphere of the time. Through historical analysis, archival research, and interviews, the above-mentioned aspects will be related to the filmmaker’s vicissitudes with censorship, examining how they marked her formative years and the beginning of her professional career until the mid-1970s, when the feature film project intended to launch her professionally was curtailed. Ultimately, I seek to explore the way in which Bartolomé experimented with narrative techniques and cinematographic language while articulating a feminist film discourse that incurred the censors’ wrath, making it impossible for her to work until the coming of democracy in Spain.

Film and Caste Anxieties in Early Twentieth-Century India

Film was one of the new technological inventions of the ‘long nineteenth century’ that often instilled a fear of loss of the existing way of life and of disturbing existing social structures. In India, this manifested in a variety of ways, such as through the censorship of films by the government, but also by social codes which created major barriers for many to work in the film industry. In this article, I discuss film and its negotiations with caste in the twentieth century through close reading of the Indian Cinematograph Committee Report, film magazines, advertisements, audience responses and the speeches of nationalist leaders. I argue that rather than democratising desire by producing the universally desirable object of the star body, popular films in India produced desire that conformed to existing caste structures. The paper contributes to debates about early cinema and caste beyond the question of representation.

Administering Disseminations: Film Exhibition and Censorship During the Great War in India

ABSTRACT This article explores the debates on film exhibition and censorship during the war years in India. The First World War (1914–18) was a watershed moment for the rapidly burgeoning cinema exhibition business in India. During the war, the government of India was caught by surprise at the pace with which the business had spread in the country. When the need for cinema propaganda arose in India, the government began to assess the nature of commercial networks the cinema exhibition companies had been able to build. Throughout the war years, the Government of India debated ways of intervening in the cinema business either by competing with the monopolistic cinema companies or by introducing censorship laws to control exhibition spaces and content. At the behest of the war propaganda department in London, the government of India found itself playing a reluctant arbitrator in a bitter competition between two influential cinema companies – Madan and Bandman – for the exhibition of Britain Prepared. This article further draws attention to the continuities between pre-war censorship debates and the war-year debates that led to the enactment of the first Cinematograph Act (1918) in India. By exploring the pre-war censorship debate about the exhibition of Johnson-Jeffries film, this article reviews a commonly held assumption in Indian film history that film censorship began in the country during the war years.

Кино, Толстой и черносотенцы

The article analyzes the history of the distribution of the cinematographic chronicle of Leo Tolstoy's farewell in 1910 in various cities of the Russian Empire. Film censorship in late imperial Russia proceeded from the circulars of the Holy Synod and was guided by the considerations of local authorities. Many films which were censored in Moscow (where the major film studios were concentrated) were blocked by local governors and police authorities. Both feature and documentary films of foreign and domestic origin were banned. Locations of cinemas, duration of screenings, and permissions to show movies during the Lent were controlled by the church. The funeral of the excommunicated writer was not held according to the Orthodox rite, filming was carried out by several film companies (Pate, A. Khanzhonkov, A. Drankov) and in a number of cities the screening of newsreels was prohibited. At the same time, in most places of the Russian Empire, cinematic screenings of Leo Tolstoy's funeral were held, causing a great public response. The article reveals why censorship in different places of the Russian Empire depended on the orders of local administrations, how the authorities in the provinces dealt with the demonstration of newsreels of the farewell to the writer, what was the reaction of the 'plebeian' society, what kind of film initiatives were available from the Black Hundred organizations, and a special case of demonstrating the Tolstoy-related program in Perm is also considered. The analysis of the film press, provincial newspapers and documents of the Perm archives leads to the conclusion that the films about Leo Tolstoy, which were sensational for film studios, distributors and exhibitors, allowed for release by the Police Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, have caused alarm and resistance from local authorities. At the same time, the Tolstoy Days were an important event not only for the capital, but also for provincial, district towns, for various social and textual communities. The Days in memory of the writer, organized by cinematic theaters, were an indicator of civic solidarity in the Russian society in the late imperial period.

Freedom of Speech & Expression with Regards to Film Censorship: Role of CBFC- Working, Regulations, Constitutionality

Freedom of Speech & Expression with Regards to Film Censorship: Role of CBFC- Working, Regulations, Constitutionality

British Film Censorship in the Twenty-First Century

British Film Censorship in the Twenty-First Century

Cinematic Style, Female Figure and Ideology in Lou Ye's Art Films

Lou Ye is a prominent Chinese film director. His films have a distinct aesthetic style known as postmodern which have a subtle ambiguity. Lou Ye has combined the elements of urban lifestyle, sexual relations, and social classes to create a unique style of cinema in his films. This research paper will analyze Lou Ye's artistic style and how it portrays the women image on screen as well as his cinematic concerns that violated the Chinese film censorship system.

The Role of Cultural Perceptions of Frenchness in British Film Censorship of Sexual Imagery

The Role of Cultural Perceptions of Frenchness in British Film Censorship of Sexual Imagery

NEWSREELS AND CENSORSHIP IN ANTANAS SMETONA’S LITHUANIA, 1926–1940

December 17, 1926 marked a change for the young independent Republic of Lithuania. On that day a military coup d’état replaced the democratically elected government with the authoritarian government led by ultra-conservative Lithua- nian Nationalist Union (Tautininkų sąjungos) party leader Antanas Smetona. The new government increased the control of various means of mass communication. In 1932 Film censorship law was passed, which created one centralised institution to censor all films shown in Lithuania (before this law, censorship was sporadic and done by different district officials). The same year Newsreels law was passed, which ordered that before any feature film screening, a Lithuanian newsreel must be shown. This law boosted the small Lithuanian film-making community. But not for long, by 1935 all rights to make Lithuanian newsreels were granted to one company run by filmmaker Jurgis Linartas, and old acquaintance of Anta- nas Smetona. From then on, only the Lithuanian newsreels produced by Jurgis Linartas could be shown in theatres. By means of censorship and control of news- reel production, Antanas Smetona’s regime tried to create an alternative reality to be shown in cinemas. But the new reality not only contrasted with real life too much, its making was too much of a task to handle by the regime. Audience reac- tion to Antanas Smetona’s period newsreels and their shortcomings, show us the construction of ideal image of Lithuania failed in interwar Lithuanian newsreels.

Shaw the Fighter (Bernard Shaw and the Censors. Fights and Failures, Stage and Screen)

Shaw the Fighter (Bernard Shaw and the Censors. Fights and Failures, Stage and Screen)

Nip, snick, cut! Decoding film censorship in India 1920-1928

ABSTRACT The debate on film censorship in colonial India is rife with assertions that censorship was introduced to empty Indian films of their nationalist content. But the examination of the Bengal Board of Film Register shows that for the period between 1920 and 1928, indigenously produced films counted for much less than American films, and film censorship during the silent era was more focused on female sexuality rather than nationalism and politics. Most of the cuts affected in films exhibited in Bengal Presidency were sexual rather than explicitly political in nature. And by the end of the 1920s, the discourse of film censorship in India would metastasize around the moral need to protect the white woman.

“We want to be neutral”:The Right-Wing ExtremistPolitics of 1930s Detroit Police Movie Censorship

This article examines the relationship between policing, film censorship, and right-wing extremist politics through a case study of the Detroit Police Department Censor Bureau's censorship of leftist cinema during the 1930s. This period saw the police Censor Bureau repeatedly target films suspected of harboring sympathy for communist ideology as well as films openly critical of Hitler and fascism. I place this history within the context of the rise of nativist and fascist movements in southeast Michigan as a whole, and within the Detroit Police Department in particular, during the years leading up to the Second World War.