Censorship is hindering Chinese-language films, say festivals' organisers

The mainland's censorship system is hampering international promotion of Chinese-language films, international film festival organisers say.

They said they wanted to hold more gala premieres of the films because of rising demand from the public and industry professionals, but censorship delays were an obstacle.

This also affected the exposure of talent from Hong Kong, which was playing an increasingly important role in Chinese-language films because of co-productions between the city and the mainland.

Cameron Bailey, co-director of the Toronto International Film Festival, the biggest film festival in North America, wants to premiere more Chinese-language films.

'From what I've learned, there are many grand-scale Chinese-language films coming out,' he said. 'The big question this year though is censorship, because of what happened last year with Lust, Caution and Lost in Beijing and some other factors,' Mr Bailey, who was in town to scout for films for the festival, said.

'The process of getting cleared by the Chinese censors has become much more unpredictable, so they don't know how long that process is going to take.

'Just like any film festival, we tend to pick our selections and announce our selections by a certain point. If the producers don't know the censorship decision, we can't know.'