 After
nearly 100 years, Sweden may finally be poised to shutter the agency charged
with censoring films deemed unsuitable for adult audiences.
The planned dissolution of Sweden's film censorship agency, Statens biografbyrå
(SBB), means that Swedish filmgoers aged 15 and older will no longer have to
wonder whether or not a particular film has been censored by the state.
The proposal comes as a part of the findings of a government-mandated inquiry
into how to update laws governing how films are reviewed, including how to
protect young people from media featuring content seen as harmful to minors.
Since 1911, SBB has been charged with reviewing and, when necessary, censoring
films. But technological changes as well as a proliferation of other outlets
through which films can be viewed means that the agency only reviews a small
portion of the content viewed by Swedish cinephiles.
According to current regulations, SBB can censor any film which depicts events
in such a manner and in such a context as to have a brutalizing effect
and is judged to have explicit or protracted scenes of severe violence to
people or animals or depicts sexual violence or coercion or presents children in
pornographic situations.
But the agency rarely exercises its power to cut scenes from films, or orders a
film banned altogether.
The Local reported in 2007 that the board last cut scenes from a
non-pornographic film in 1996, when three scenes were removed from Martin
Scorcese's gangster movie Casino, despite protests from the director.
As an alternative, the inquiry proposed that a new media agency be created to
replace both the SBB and the Swedish Media Council (Mediarådet), another state
agency aimed at reducing the risk of harmful effects on children and young
people of certain media content.
The new agency won't be so judicial, but rather a contact body with
information; to help children learn to understand the media, to have a more
critical eye, said inquiry head Marianne Eliason to the Dagens Nyheter (DN)
newspaper.
The new agency will also assume SBB's current duties of managing the four levels
of age restrictions for films in Sweden (all ages, 7+, 11+, 15+). Moreover, the
new agency will no longer employ censors, but instead will include a team
of film examiners tasked with determining the appropriate age restriction
for a given film, rather than censoring it.
The inquiry also proposes that film companies be allowed to submit their films
for review by the new agency voluntarily. However, films not reviewed by the new
agency would automatically be classified as only appropriate for viewers 15
years and older.
Since implementation of the inquiry's findings will likely require a change to
Sweden's constitution, Eliason doesn't expect the new system to be in place
before 2011.
Comment:
But...
On the surface this might sound good but...
This is what they'll scrap:
Compulsory examination
The content of films or pre-recorded video recordings (videograms) shall be
examined and approved by the National Board of Film Censors prior to showing at
a public gathering or entertainment.
This will remain:
Swedish Code of Statutes (SFS): SFS 1990:894, Published on
September 4, 1990
Chapter 16: On Crimes against Public Order
Section 10 b Any person who in a still picture or in a film, in a video
recording, a television programme or other moving pictures depicts sexual
violence or coercion with the intention that the picture or pictures be spread
or spreads such depiction, shall be convicted, except that the criminal act in
view of the circumstances be defensible, and sentenced for unlawful depiction of
violence to a fine or imprisonment for a maximum period of two years. And the
same shall apply to any person who in moving pictures explicitly or extensively
depicts extreme violence towards humans or animals with the intention that the
pictures be spread or spreads such depiction.
A person who negligently distributes material as referred to in subsection (1)
shall, if such distribution takes place in the course of business or otherwise
for gain, be liable to the penalty laid down in subsection (1)
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