The newly established Political Films Consultative Committee or
PFCC hopes to play an influential role in the liberalisation of
social space in Singapore.
Its chairman, Richard Magnus believes the advice provided to the
authorities will be given much weight.
Saifulbahri Ismail with this report :
Mr Magnus's committee will assess party political films.
It will work with the filmmakers themselves to ensure the films
are objectively assessed.
"We would encourage the applicant to be completely honest in
giving the information. We would expect the applicant to have
complete integrity in providing the information and that would be
something we're looking for. And we hope that would happen."
Mr Magnus also outlined how the process of classifying a
political film would work under the new amended Films Act.
Filmmakers, when submitting their films for classification
online with the Board of Films Censors, will have an option to
declare whether their film is political or not.
If it is, the film is sent to the PFCC for assessment.
It will then recommend to the BFC whether this film can be
allowed.
However, the BFC will have the final say on whether it can be
screened.
In assessing the film, Mr Magnus said his committee will be
guided both by the law as well as what has been clarified in
parliament.
But he conceded that there will be much grey area and
interpreting the legislation would be a challenge.
He expects 'robust discussion' among the committee members.
Members of the committee are citizens of high standing, who are
non-partisan and whose views would carry weight with the
public.
One of them is Muhammad Haniff, Associate Research Fellow at the
S Rajaratnam School of International Studies :
"At international level there's always nexus between politics
and Islam. For example, we have the experience of Fitnah video and
so on. So, I thought those would require some perspective from
religious community in processing the application."
Another committee member Daniel Yun, Managing Director of
MediaCorp Raintree says the new process will provide greater
clarity :
"Over the years, we've seen filmakers looking at subject matters
that's progressively threading into areas that previously we've not
threaded before and some of these areas may in the past be
considered very sensitive. Right now, it may be considered very
open for interpretation and I think it will go a long way to
demystify certain myths about what can and cannot be done in this
part of the world."
Other members of the PFCC include those from the legal
fraternity, labour movement, print media, and the business
community.
Political film makers view the newly formed Political Films
Consultative Committee with cautious optimism.
33-year old film maker Ho Choon Hiong says the credibility of
the committee will lie in the decisions it will make :
"I think it's only through time that can tell whether they are
credible or not. If they keep let's say objecting to certain films,
I think audience will be smart enough to tell whether they are
discerning or they are being very objective in giving out their
judgement, because videos can be leaked to youtube and if they pass
a certain judgement that the mainstream audience couldn't agree
with, then their credibility is in question."
However, another film director, Martyn See is more
skeptical.
He questions the independence of the committee, whose members of
the committee were unveiled today by chairman Richard Magnus.
"Looking at the make-up of the committee, I'm a little bit
skeptical as to how they are able to exercise independent
judgement. Many of them seem to be working or have very close ties
with government agencies."
Mr See added that the committee will be bound by new
restrictions in the amended Films Act.
They include conditions such as animation-free and
non-dramatic.
According to Mr See, the real test for the committee will be
assessing his film 'The Singapore Rebel'.
He welcomes the new approach taken by the committee to engage
and conduct dialogue with applicants :
"Well, it sounds like a breath of fresh air considering that the
BFC never had a dialogue with me when they ban my films. So that's
a good step forward. But the ultimate litmus test would be when I
re-submit Singapore Rebel again and when I do that I will be
waiting for the films consultative committee to give me a call so I
can sit down with them and go through whatever they feel may be
offensive."
Singapore Rebel is a 26 minute documentary on opposition leader
Chee Soon Juan which is currently banned by the authorities.
It has been viewed more than 200 thousand times on the
internet.
--938Live