CENSORSHIP Boards are intended to ensure that creative licence has limits but not to the extent that it kills creativity. According to practitioners and stakeholders in the local film industry the new Film Censorship Board (LPF) guidelines might just achieve this; snuffing the creative juices of the industry. And that, too, it being targeted at Malay film content, ignores the reality of an industry which includes a vibrant non-Malay sector where the guidelines do not apply. Thus is produced a communal approach to filmmaking: the Malay (Muslim) films on the one side and, on the other, the non-Malay (non-Muslim) films. Within an industry which impacts greatly on the minds of moviegoers and television audiences, this is unhelpful as far as national integration is concerned. Malaysia must be portrayed as one, irrespective of the language, culture and religion. Where better then to put this across if not in films because what is portrayed on screen will, to a lesser or greater degree, affect the psyche of viewers and with it, perspectives.
To continue reading the rest of the article, click here