It seems that the flourishing Chinese film industry, the second largest in the world behind the colossal US film machine, will now benefit from greater degrees of freedom, thanks to an easing of the constraints imposed by censorship. The state control body of the press, radio, cinema and television released a statement yesterday notifying that films dealing with "general subjects" will no longer need to be controlled - with painstaking attention - by the authorities .
Producers of such films will only be required to post a summary of the film's plot on the administration's website, rather than scrutinizing the entire script in order to get permission to start shooting. Films on "general topics" are opposed to those on "significant topics". Films dealing with the following topics are considered "significant": religion, relations between ethnic groups, military affairs, diplomacy, police forces, the judicial system, historical events. For this type of film, it is still mandatory to deliver the full text of the screenplay to the administration officials. The advantage would therefore be "significant" only for that part of cinematographic productions whose subjects do not collide with the truths of the regime.
But even in this case, the problem, eliminated upstream, could reappear downstream. After filming, in fact, the film must receive official approval before being released in theaters. According to the director Zhang Qi "for many producers this system could prove to be even more disadvantageous: they could in fact be refused permission by the authority to circulate the film when it is now completed, and everyone easily understands that it is much more onerous to edit a beautiful film 'and ready that a screenplay”.
