International Review of Educational Cinematography (Jan-Dec 1930)

— 28 — authorities, and later of the police. These were pioneer days : control was poorly organized and conformed to confused standards ; it was concerned mainly with the prevention of seditious films and had scant effective authority. In April 1924, a « Central Censorship Commission » was set up, attached to the Ministry of the Interior, with precise attributions, jurisdiction throughout the whole country, and efficacious powers, guaranteed by the whole police machinery being placed at its service. Since the 1st January 1928, the Commission has been transferred to the Ministry of Arts, and it will shortly pass over to the Ministry of Social Welfare, which has by a recent measure of reform been entrusted with the control of popular educational spectacles. The Commission consists of 12 representatives of the cultural, artistic, administrative, police and military authorities ; the press and the authors' association are also represented on it. The standards observed in judging films are known and generally adhered to. A ban is placed on films that contain anything obscene or pornographic; on scenes of a kind to arouse sensuality; « crime » films which exhibit real or imaginary actions of a kind calculated to pervert the imagination or ing Commission must reject all films which might be dangerous to the safety of the State or publicorder or morality, or which contain matter that might tend to lead the onlooker into criminal ways. The above briefly indicated policy is not yet completely developed, because the Censoring Commission began its labours only in 1924, and the regulations, incomplete as they are, have been in force for little more than three years. On the other hand, the number of films examined has not been so large as to call for any serious change in the list of reason for censoring ; while the lack, touched on by Dr. Kiritzesco, of a local film industry leaves the Roumanian market open to foreign films, which have already been dealt with by foreign Censor's Offices or Commissions. For purely political reasons, that is to say, with the object of encouraging the diffusion of the cinema in centres where there is a large youthful population and at the same time safeguarding the authority of the State in those centres, it has been decided to print captions in Roumanian, German and Hungarian, incases where there is a mixed population with a prevalence of one or another ethnical group; and it has also been decided, for the same reasons, to prohibit the appearance on the screen in regions that bristle with political dangers of actors wearing Russian or German uniforms. It is worthy of note that the censoring of films in Roumania has a time limit, and there is probably no other country in the world which has made this wise provision. 'The authorization card is valid for five years only. However short or long that period may appear, considering the many things that may influence the duration of a film's value or attraction to the public, there is no doubt that under this system films that have been superseded by new modes of thought and life and technique will have little chance of being shown. This should obviate the widely deplored habit of exhibiting old films reflecting a state of mind that no longer in consonant with changed conditions of life and art, and make it impossible to go on for ever dishing up some exasperating commonplace to the public, especially in small rural centres, where there is a greater need than elsewhare for the supervision of films for exhibition on account of the lower grade of general mental development and culture. Under the system limiting the authorization to show a film to five years, film owners will no longer be able to profit, at the expense of the public, by a permission granted long ago and that now, under changed conditions, would and ought to be refused. On this account alone, and apart from all the other points set forth by Dr. Kiritzesco in connection with the censoring system existing in his country, Roumania proves itself to be one of the very few countries that have a proper understanding of the object and value of official standards in the revision of films.