Provincial officials to censor some films

The mainland's media watchdog announced yesterday that it would transfer a part of its film censorship power to provincial-level authorities from July 1, its website said.

The State Administration of Radio Film and Television's (Sarft) move aimed to improve censorship efficiency and signalled a more relaxed environment towards a booming domestic film market, analysts said.

But as provinces have never done this, analysts are concerned controls will tighten, at least at first.

Previously, films had to go through Sarft for registration and censorship. The new policy allows six provincial media authorities to register and censor films before they are sent to Sarft for final inspection.

The power to register and censor all films on important historic and revolutionary issues and those made in collaboration with foreign partners will remain with Sarft.

The mainland last year produced 456 films, third to India and the US, not including 27 animations, 19 documentaries and 52 science shows. Some 11 films each had box-office takings of more than 100 million yuan (HK$113.8 million), according to statistics on the development of China's cultural industries in an annual report released by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences on Thursday.

Total box-office takings last year hit 6.2 billion yuan, up 43 per cent year on year, making the mainland the fastest growing market in the world, Professor Yin Hong of Tsinghua University said in the report.

Under pressure from foreign films and higher audience demand, Beijing is eager to increase production, and policy has shown the government is keen to continue its support by cutting the workload of Sarft and improving its efficiency in censorship matters, analysts say.

'It aims to streamline the inspection process to cope with the developing market against the backdrop of the booming domestic film industry. It's expected to shorten the 20-working-day inspection time. But we don't know how much it will be reduced, as it's not in place yet,' a Sarft film production section worker said.

But no one can predict what effect passing some of the censorship work to the provincial level will have. 'Perhaps the censorship will be more controlled and strict under the provincial media watchdogs,' said professor Zhou Xing, at Beijing Normal University. He said Sarft had years of experience and had become more open-minded. 'When it's in the early stage, censors would usually be more cautious because they are unfamiliar with the procedure,' he said.

Also, a US political risk expert had warned on Monday that Chinese policies would elbow out multinationals and could cause confrontation with Western countries, Reuters reported.