‘Censorship would still be around were it not for divorce’ – Owen Bonnici

From left: Owen Bonnici, Mario de Marco and Adrian Buckle.

Teodor Reljic

With film and stage classification as we know it set to disappear from the local scene in the coming weeks, Labour spokesperson for culture Owen Bonnici has said that this development would most likely have not come into effect had the outcome of the divorce referendum been different.

"I am sure that had the divorce referendum not come about, or worse still, had the Nationalist Party won the referendum, today the two sides of the House would be still locking horns on the issue," Bonnici said.

In a move perceived by many to be a response to controversy arising in the wake of several instances of State-condoned censorship, Culture Minister Mario de Marco submitted a draft proposal in January which called for all matters related to film and stage to be moved away from the jurisdiction of the police and into the hands of the Ministry for Culture.

READ MORE: Censored no more what is the future of Maltese theatre?

It was the landmark 'Stitching' case that brought the issue to public attention, after local theatre company Unifaun Theatre attempted to stage the hard-hitting UK relationship drama - penned by Anthony Nielson, and staged in Edinburgh with a '14' rating - in 2009, only to be banned by the Film and Classification Board at the time.

A parallel case involved author Alex Vella Gera and student editor Mark Camilleri, who were taken to court on obscenity charges after Vella Gera's short story 'Li Tkisser Sewwi' was published on the University and Junior College-distributed magazine Ir-Realta'.

De Marco also proposed that the Film and Stage Classification Board be dissolved, to give way to a more relaxed system of self-regulation which would leave it up to theatre directors, producers and sometimes venue owners to age-rate their productions.

The proposal was discussed in parliament last Tuesday, and was approved in its second reading.

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‘Censorship would still be around were it not for divorce’ – Owen Bonnici