Roll credits on film board ratings
Re Film board seeks end to porn profits, June 4 Consumer Services Minister David Orazietti’s decision to restructure the Ontario Film Review Board (OFRB) is very good news. But I think Orazietti and the province should go one step further and cease rating films altogether.
Film is the only artform subjected to this antiquated form of censorship. Toronto is now home to more than 100 film festivals, to say nothing of the growing festival scene across the province. Each of these festivals must either pay for ratings (an exorbitant cost, as your article pointed out) or unjustly restrict audiences to those 18 years and over.
It’s an oxymoron. Film festivals are encouraged to expand audiences and get young people involved in filmmaking and film appreciation. Yet, due to the outdated and clearly over-resourced OFRB, young people are largely excluded.
In my work and board service at film festivals in Toronto I’ve come across dozens of fellow festival organizers who are struggling to grow audiences while being forced to exclude those under 18. I hope the new structure that rises from the OFRB ashes includes options for film festivals to “self rate” our films as the gaming industry has been allowed to do for many years now.
The overwhelming majority of films at most film festivals are suitable to all ages and it’s time to leave it to the programming staff and organizers to make those decisions instead of an outdated and outmoded provincial agency. Scott Miller Berry, executive director, the Images Festival, Toronto For those people working at their minimum wage jobs pumping gas, mopping floors and serving coffee at doughnut shops for 40 hours a week (if they’re lucky enough to get that many hours), I’m sure it’s comforting to know that a bunch of government appointees are making more for their 40 hours a month watching and classifying porn.
That’s $420 a day for four or five days a month to watch porn. This could only be a government operation. Rob Cowan, Toronto