In the opinion of the censor

In The Opinion of the Censor is a feature-length documentary that tells the story of the Censorship of Films Act 1923 and how one  canny term in that statute has allowed consecutive holders of the role of Film Censor to reflect the prevailing values of Irish society over the last 100 years. 

The Act declared that all films publicly distributed in Ireland must be viewed by the Censor of the day, who was given the power to ban or cut them if in the opinion of the Censor they were indecent, obscene, blasphemous or contrary to public morality. The documentary illustrates how each consecutive Censor was able to apply this pithy phrase to (subjectively) determine their decisions, and in doing so, play a part in charting the social, political and cultural evolution of the State itself. 

 Censorship in the first five or six decades was primarily concerned with banning and cutting films. The first Film Censor James Montgomery banned 1,700 movies during his seventeen years in office! However, classification has now replaced censorship on the basis that in a mature society adults should be free to decide for themselves what they can watch, and the role of IFCO today (formally renamed in 2008) is to provide age-related classification and consumer guidance for the public and for parents in particular. 

An authored documentary, John tells the story in a vivid and visual way, using specific movies to illustrate his themes, including Gone With the Wind, Casablanca, On the Waterfront, The Graduate, Monty Python’s Life of Brian, The Last Temptation of Christ, Natural Born Killers, Bad Santa and Nine Songs.

The film is directed by Andrew Gallimore and Lydia Monin and supported by Oireachtas TV, Coimisiun na Mean and the Irish Film Classification Office.