Dear Minister,

I am unhappy with the behaviour of the Media Development Authority with respect to a film I submitted for rating. I believe they are acting outside of lawful authority – i.e. taking the law into their own hands – and thus abusing their powers.

The film in question was Devotee by Remi Lange. The In-receipt number was A/0907/I007494U, first submitted on 23 July 2009, in DVD format.

About 10 days later, when a friend and I showed up at the MDA office, we were told that:

(a) Devotee was rejected for rating; 
(b) Three parts of the film was found too objectionable to even merit an R21 rating, on account of sex and/or nudity; 
(c) MDA would not return us the DVD.

I am not questioning the decisions regarding (a) and (b). I understand there is a process for appeal, which we chose not to avail ourselves of, due to time constraints.

I question (c).

1.1 What right does MDA have to seize a film that was submitted in good faith for classification?

The filmmaker, in extending to us screening rights, had asked us to be responsible, subject to financial penalty, for returning the film in good condition, a request that only stands to reason, for otherwise bootleg copies could well be made and circulated in violation of his intellectual property. The financial penalty would be in the order of a few thousand euros if he couriered a digital film to us. In the end, we agreed on a DVD, which though of lower quality, was less costly. But the principle of us being responsible for returning the DVD on demand stands. It remains the filmmaker's property, not ours. Not the MDA's.

I ask:

2.1 What law gives the MDA powers to retain other people's property? 

2.2 If there is such a law, why is it not clearly stated on MDA's website? Why did the MDA officer who accepted my submission not warn me that this could be a possible outcome? 

2.3 How does your ministry reconcile such behaviour (if you choose to defend this behaviour) with the government's oft-stated position about respecting property rights including intellectual property?

In the end, I protested strongly – how could we edit the DVD when they refuse to return the DVD? - and the officer handed the DVD back to us

We arranged for the cuts to be made as per the listed objections of the censors. Where we made edits, we inserted still frames to inform viewers that at those points, cuts had been made. We wanted to be accountable and transparent to our viewers. As paying audience, they had a right to know to what extent what they were viewing departed from the original work of the filmmaker.

We resubmitted the DVD. Once again, it was rejected. The reason this time was that the still frames with text were unacceptable.

I would appreciate your clarification over these questions:

3.1 What lawful authority does the MDA have to demand that still frames with text should be censored when these frames did not incite race/religious hatred, depict sex, nudity, violence or child pornography; nor did it contain coarse language or Chinese dialects – the established reasons for cuts to be made? Please cite the law.

3.2 If there is such a law that empowers them to censor speech that informs the public about government decisions, what justification (kindly explain the rational nexus and public interest justification) is there for such a law?

3.3 If this is a matter which the law leaves to the discretion of the MDA, then why does the MDA use its discretion this way? Why object to informing audiences what cuts have been made? Why the desire to remain unaccountable to the public?

I attempted to research this matter before writing to you. I looked for a clear list of censorship guidelines on MDA's website. There was none on their website. This was despite Recommendation 7.5.1 of the Censorship Review Committee 2002: "To promote joint regulation with industry players, MDA should provide broadly-framed content guidelines to industry players, explain censorship decisions clearly and make them readily available to industry players."

It so happened too that when my friend went down (I was not with him this time) to the MDA on the second occasion, he asked verbally where he could see the guidelines. The MDA officer said they had taken the old one down and will put the new one up only by the end of the year i.e. December. The same officer gave no explanation for disallowing the worded stills, only that it was not within the guidelines - but the guidelines are not available.

I therefore would ask for your further clarification:

4.1 Why are there no guidelines visible to the public? If new guidelines are not ready, why take down the old?

On that second occasion, the MDA again refused to return the DVD. They said we should write in to ask for it back.

Thus:

5.1 Please consider this letter as the formal request that the DVD be returned to us as trustees for the filmmaker's property.

Mr Minister, I have blogged about this incident on www.yawningbread.org. The facts are therefore in the public domain and I intend that your reply will likewise appear on my blog, in the public interest.

I look forward to your reply,

* * * * *

 
11 September 2009
Email to me from Julia Hang of MICA
(She's the Director, corporate communications and press secretary to the minister)

Dear Mr Au

I refer to your letter to Ag Minister (MICA) dated 28 August 2009. You had asked: "What law gives the MDA powers to retain other people’s property", referring to a DVD entitled 'Devotee' that was submitted to the Board of Film Censors (BFC) for classification.

2 When the film 'Devotee' was submitted on 23 July 2009 for classification, it was submitted in a DVD format together with three other short films. 'Devotee' was submitted to the BFC with the intention of screening it at a film festival in August. However, as there were three other short films accompanying 'Devotee', the BFC assessed all four features in the DVD, as is the usual practice.

3 The first film 'Devotee' was rated R21 with edits, as the film contained an explicit and prolonged homosexual scene and under the BFC film guidelines, explicit shots of homosexual sex are not allowed.

4 Of the remaining three short films in the DVD, one of them was rated PG (Parental Guidance) while the other two films were rated Not for All Ratings (NAR) as they featured explicit scenes of gay sex. NAR means the films have gone beyond R21 guidelines and hence cannot be exhibited.

5 On 6 August 2009, you went to the Media Development Authority (MDA) to collect the title and were informed that the DVD was rated NAR (Not for All Ratings) and would be retained. Perhaps MDA could have explained more clearly to you that the DVD carries the highest rating of all the four films in it, and as two of the short films were rated NAR, the whole DVD carries an NAR rating, and hence the DVD had to be retained. The basis of this is contained in section 18(1) of the Films Act which states: "Where the Board has prohibited the exhibition of any film or any part of any film, the Board may retain the film or any excised part of the film until it is exported or is disposed of under section 28". You can find this statute on MDA’s website. The URL is: http://www.mda.gov.sg/wms.www/devnpolicies.aspx?sid=153

6 Although the DVD had to be retained, the counter staff acted flexibly and allowed you to take back the DVD for editing purposes when you said that it was the only original copy you had and needed it back to make edits to the film ‘Devotee’.

7 On 11 August, a friend of yours went to MDA to submit an edited copy of 'Devotee'. Although the scenes were edited as required by the BFC, the edited scenes were replaced by black stills with white text describing the homosexual sequences and indicating that they had been censored by the BFC. This edited version was rejected and retained by the BFC as the film was altered to include a detailed description of scenes not permitted under the prevailing classification guidelines for R21 films.

8 On 14 August, the film was submitted a third time by a friend of yours, this time with the proper edits made as required by the BFC. The BFC rushed to clear the film within one hour in order to facilitate the screening of the film that very evening.

9 Throughout the entire period of handling the DVD submission, MDA staff have acted professionally, and have been helpful to the various persons who submitted the film 'Devotee', even advising them in mid-July to submit the film in time for classification to meet the film festival's deadline.

10 We note that you still have in your possession, the original DVD which contains 'Devotee' and three short films. MDA has acted flexibly and reasonably to allow you to take back the DVD to edit ‘Devotee’ for the film festival, but the fact remains that this DVD contains two short films which are NAR and hence not allowed for exhibition. As mentioned, section 18(1) of the Films Act requires prohibited films to be retained by the BFC, disposed of or exported. You will need to return this DVD containing the two short NAR films to the BFC or give an undertaking to the BFC that you will re-export the film out of Singapore. The latter option will allow you to return the film to the film-maker. The same applies to the other DVD version of ‘Devotee’ which contains black stills with white text which you requested to be returned to the film-maker, although the additional word graphics inserted would indicate that this is not the original film sent by the film-maker.

11 You have also pointed out that the Censorship Review Committee 2002 had recommended that "to promote joint regulation with industry players, MDA should provide broadly-framed content guidelines to industry players, explain censorship decisions clearly and make them readily available to industry players". Indeed, the BFC has made available its film classification guidelines to all commercial film and video companies as they exhibit and distribute films/videos on a regular basis.

12 In providing good customer service, MDA should also not compromise on discharging its responsibility effectively. In this instance, MDA has responded professionally, and even expedited the processing of the DVD you submitted.

Thank you.

* * * * *

Dear Ms Hang,

Thank you for your reply.

My first email (to the minister) essentially raised three issues:

1. Why the MDA/BFC wanted to retain the DVDs;

2. Why text stills were not acceptable;

3. Why censorship guidelines were not available to the public.

I am clear about the first matter from your email. I have to admit I had not known that the DVD we received from the filmmaker contained additional short films. We had not negotiated for or requested these short films. Since we were short of time, I rushed the DVD to the MDA soon after receipt without previewing them. I now understand that the problem lay with two of the three short films.

On the second attempt, the DVD contained only the film Devotee, in its second version, i.e. with the text stills. I also understand from your email that when the MDA/BFC rejected the text stills, the DVD was classified as NAR and thus wanted to retain the disk - this being their standard operating procedure.

It however begs the question why text stills were not acceptable, rendering the disk NAR. Your email said that this was because the "film was altered to include a detailed description of scenes not permitted under the prevailing classification guidelines for R21 films." I regret to say that I find this explanation unsatisfactory. Firstly, the text did not provide any "detailed" description, but a brief description (see attached stills), but more importantly, it boils down to this: Why is text (as opposed to images) censorable? I had asked in my first email what law empowers them to do so? Why is speech informing people of the government's actions censorable? If there is such a law that leaves it to the discretion of the MDA, why, I had asked, is discretion exercised in this manner? I continue to await your response.

I am compelled to ask these questions as a consequence of the third issue - the absence of public information regarding censorship guidelines. In your reply, you explained that "the BFC has made available its film classification guidelines to all commercial film and video companies as they exhibit and distribute films/videos on a regular basis." However, this does not quite answer the question. Selective distribution as described hardly satisfies the question I asked about public information. More pertinently, an MDA officer herself told my friend that the guidelines had been available on their website previously, but not anymore. Why was it taken down? Why has there been a reduction in transparency?

Looking forward to your clarification,

Yours sincerely,

© Yawning Bread