This is what we see on television today: A stream of blurred images, whether it is the bare flesh of a woman, a lit cigarette between fingers, the weapon of a police officer.

The situation is no better at movie theaters. In the case of foreign films in particular, there would often be an abrupt jump between scenes that would leave viewers at a loss to what happened in the story.

These censorship-happy displays have become an endless source of jokes on social media, with many memes about them going viral. They also serve to inspire artists to provide their views on freedom of expression in the arts and on primordial society in the changing world.

A more direct protest occurred in 2008, when a small group of filmmakers representing the Indonesian Film Society (MFI) filed an appeal for the dismissal of the Film Censorship Institute (LSF) to the Constitutional Court because they accused it of literally butchering their work, and urged that it be replaced with the rating classification system.

With members of the Islam Defenders Front (FPI) surrounding the court building, the justices turned down the request made by film directors/producers Riri Riza, Nia Dinata and Tino Saroenggallo, artist Annisa Nurul Shanty and Jakarta International Film Festival director Lalu Rois Amriradhiani for the annulment of five articles in Law No. 8/1998 on Film that endorsed LSF.

However, with one dissenting opinion in favor of the dismissal, the court suggested a revision to the law to make the institute’s actions less aggressive and more favorable to the film community’s interests.

Over a year later the government passed the revised version, Law No. 33/2009 on Film, which changed the censorship body approach from “cutting” and “omitting” to “returning” the film to the makers to perform those actions, otherwise the censorship body had the right to suggest to the government to hand out administrative sanctions against the makers.

It also stipulates imprisonment for those who distribute and screen films which have not passed the censorship process.

To pass censorship, a film should not bear any of these six elements in its contents: encourage violence, gambling and drug abuse; pornography; instigate horizontal conflicts in society; blasphemy; encourage people to break the law and debasing humanity.

The ambiguity of the new censorship rules still confused filmmakers who had to adjust the age rating to pass screening.

Ifa Ifansyah, the director of Catatan Dodol Calon Dokter (Cado-Cado: Doctors 101), was surprised when LSF suggested the film’s age rate should be changed from teen appropriate, or 13+, to older viewers, or 17+.

“It’s a comedy but because there are scenes of surgery — a mock up to emphasize the real situation facing the doctors — the film is considered not suitable for viewing by young people,” he said.

The musical Ini Kisah Tiga Dara (Three Sassy Sisters) by Nia Dinata was at first classified as an adult film, or 21+, due to the “aggressiveness” of the titular characters, but after further dialogue with LSF it was changed to 17+ a day before its premiere in August.

“From the discussion with LSF, twice, I eventually trimmed particular scenes and added a voiceover at the ending,” said Nia as reported by bisnis.com.

Many members of the film community also expressed concern at the high cost of censorship, because they have to pay fees for each copy of the film submitted to the LSF, as well as the film promotional material such as posters and trailers. They also must undergo the whole process when the film is to be distributed on CD or DVD or screened on TV.

Actor and director Lukman Sardi, who chaired the recent Indonesia Film Festival (FFI), said that a total change in censorship would be among the main issues in FFI’s campaign to restore the nation’s film industry to its former status.

“Censorship is an inheritance of the past regime that is no longer relevant today. It creates an uncomfortable situation for both the viewers and the filmmakers. There should be a change in censor regulations,” he said.

CENTENNIAL HISTORY

Amid the dissatisfaction over the issue of censorship, LSF turned 100 this year, with its celebration held on Nov. 18 with the launch of a book on the history of the institution.

According to Culture and Education Minister Muhadjir Effendy, a censorship body is imperative to ensure the presence of the government in the film industry.

“Although censorship should not restrict creativity, a film is not value free,” he said at the event held in Gedung Film, South Jakarta.

The Dutch colonial administration established the institution, known as Ordonansi Film, with the issuance of a regulation on March 18, 1916. The regulation was changed under the Japan occupation from 1942 to 1945 and underwent a transitional period after independence in 1945 to 1950 as the Film Examination Commission.

The institution focused on film distribution supervision during the period 1950-1966, and changed to censorship since 1966. The Film Censor Body (BSF) changed to its current name, LSF, in 1992.

“This year is the high momentum for us to reflect and to reconsolidate our work internally,” said Ahmad Yani Basuki, LSF chairman for the 2015-2019 period.

Government Regulation No. 18/2014 on the institution stipulates a new structure of members. If previously there were 45 members representing the military, police, religion organizations, societal groups and government institutions without selection, the new structure allows only 17 members — five government representatives, with 12 others representing the public who must undergo a selection process on their competence.

In the new structure, LSF is allowed to have 45 censorship workers, but according to Ahmad the institution currently only has 33 full-time employees.

“We have a change in our work culture here as everyone should work professionally,” said the retired military officer who got his post at the institution as a public representative.

“Although we are still guarding the nation from the negative influence of films or TV shows, we adopt the new paradigm of contributing to the development of film industry. That is the reason we promote dialogues with filmmakers about their work.”

Each member, he said, had the competence of film content evaluation and is authorized to pass a film or sinetron (TV soap). Should there be questions about actions to be taken, they could raise it to an evaluation committee before passing it to a plenary meeting.

“We invite experts on the subject matter to get better insights if necessary, but that’s rarely happened,” he said.

Under his administration, the institution has developed a curation function where filmmakers could submit their raw work on CD for preliminary review to avoid wasting time and money should they have to redo the finishing later.

Starting last year, LSF formed regional branches whose members are tasked to promote local wisdom and cultures unique to the region. “If it was a film on Papuans, for example, then there should be no question on nudity in the film,” said Ahmad.

However, learning that public awareness on viewing discretion was still low, he said the institution would focus on educating the public about self-censorship.

“It will be our most time-consuming program to educate the public to only watch age-appropriate films and to choose films that have passed the LSF censors. It will be difficult with the presence of online streaming services which are not included in our field of work,” he said.

“Our goal for the future is that everyone could enjoy watching a film and become a stakeholder of that film. If people have become aware of what they could and should not watch and the filmmakers know who their target audience was, then it’s easier for us to make classification based on age. But it’s still a long way to go to be there.”

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