On Monday 10th of June media studies students from all around the Top of the South came to the State Cinema to be censors for the day.

Students from the Nelson/Marlborough region had the amazing opportunity, thanks to the New Zealand Office of Film and Literature Classification.  We first watched a screening of a movie, never before seen in New Zealand, and then got to discuss and decide a rating for it.

The day began with an in-depth and insightful lesson from classification office employees Georgia Davidson and Shiyi Redpath, on the importance of having diverse voices of people from “all walks of life” when classifying films. 

We also learnt what the classifications office actually does. This includes reviewing games and movies to less glamorous jobs, such as reviewing extreme gore in upcoming horror films or having to watch the live stream of the recent mosque terror attacks.

We learnt how classifications were picked and what went into deciding the difference between an R16 or R18. The words sex, horror, crime, cruelty and violence were drilled into us from the get-go to ensure we knew what to look out for when reviewing the film.

The other thing that was heavily expressed and the main take- away for a lot of the students, was that it's all about context. If someone is naked, it will not necessarily warrant a restriction, if there are no sexual implications. What I personally found insightful about this, was the way a movie could have the rating changed if it had cultural or historical significance. The movie Hacksaw Ridge, for example, was originally meant to be an R16 but was changed to an M because of its historical and educational value.

The film we watched was Mid90s, an A24 film directed by Jonah Hill about a 12-year-old kid in the 90s finding purpose and friendship in skateboarding. The film, while culturally significant because of the issues to do with homophobia, toxic masculinity and poverty, had a lot of coarse language and illegal behaviour that seemed to go without consequences. For those reasons, the general consensus was to rate the film an R16.

Overall, I think every budding director or producer in the cinema took a lot of important information away from the day, things that they may use in their own film-making, or things that are just as interesting conversation pieces.