Year 13 Media Studies students were fortunate enough to attend the Censor for a Day event at Reading Cinemas in Porirua & spend time rating an unseen film. Teacher Zondree Pierree reflects on a valuable day for the class.

The event which was run by the Office of Film and Literature Classification involved staff who were censors teaching us how films, video games and books are rated in New Zealand. 

After a quick run through of how the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act 1993 is applied to films, we were shown a film that hadn’t been released in New Zealand yet, Judas and the Black Messiah, directed by Shaka King. 

After a lunch break, we worked through the censorship process and rated the film. This proved to be an engaging and enlightening process. 

We discovered that when you rate a film, you can’t just consider the amount of crime, violence, sex or offensive language, you also have to consider things like cruelty, horror, who the target audience is and how it may affect them, the way bad things are depicted (eg. was it serious or comedic), does it have any social, cultural or educational merit and would restricting it limit freedom of expression. 

After working through the censorship process, most students gave the film a rating of R16. It turns out we were wrong and the film was officially given a R13 rating.

Overall it was an enriching and enjoyable experience.