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About

Welcome to the Office of Film and Literature Classification’s Decisions Database. The database will include all classification decisions (and associated documents) made by the Classification Office and its predecessors, the Chief Censor of Films, the Video Recordings Authority and the Indecent Publications Tribunal. It will also include decisions made by the review authorities for each of these, and court records where available. At the moment, decisions from the Classification Office (1994 – ongoing), the Indecent Publications Tribunal (1963-1994) and the Video Recordings Authority (1983 – 1994) are available. Decisions of the Chief Censor of Films from 1917 to 1994, review authorities and courts will be added over the next few years.

Some of the information on this system is known to be incomplete, particularly as regards early Classification Office records, which may not have dates or associated documents attached. If you have any questions please contact the Classification Office.

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Search

The search facility gives access to the whole of the database, using a number of search options. You can combine any number of these options, and the more specific you are the fewer decisions will be returned. When you have entered all the information you have, click on the Submit Search button to start the search.

Two words of warning on searching:

  • if you enter only a common word, such as babe, or lust, the result is likely to be overwhelmingly large;
  • if you spell any word incorrectly, the database can’t guess what you mean, so check your spelling if you don’t get a result.

Use the Title search to look up publication titles. If you don’t know the full name of a publication, type in what you do know. The database will find the best match. The more of the title you can type in, the more exact the result will be. Foreign titles will be recognised, and there is no need to type in special characters. Apostrophes must be typed in if they occur – however, it is not necessary to type in the whole of a word to get a result. Both of the following examples will find the film Antonia’s Line.

  • antonia’s line (full title)
  • anton (for words beginning with anton)

The shorter your search, the greater the number of titles that will be returned.

Accuracy is paramount, for example:

  • "Requiem Dream" will not return Requiem for a Dream,
  • "Requiem for", or "a Dream", or "Requiem for a" or "Dream" will return Requiem for a Dream.

Be aware that some titles may have multiple or different classifications. You will need to refer to date, medium and running time to find what you are looking for, for example:

  • A search for The Cell will return a classification of R16 on film, and R18 on DVD.

Sometimes a classification decision may change as a result of a decision of a review authority, for example:

  • A search for 8 Mile will display two results for the cinema release. One result will be from the Film and Literature Board of Review and the other result will be from the Classification Office.

The Board of Review decision overrides the Classification Office decision.

Use the Date Range search to find decisions between time periods. The database assumes that two digit years belong to the 20th century. For example, if you type in 97 as the year, the database will find publications from 1997. If you wish to search dates outside the 20th century, you must type in the four digit year, eg., 1889 or 2001. If you type in an impossible date, eg., 30 February, the date will be ignored. The system recognises leap years.

Use the Country search to find publications from particular countries, eg. U.S.A., Canada, New Zealand. Try other ways of typing these in, eg., USA, NZ, as the original entries may not be consistent.

Use the Format search to find decisions on particular kinds of publications, eg., film, book, magazine.

The Classification search offers you a list of possible options. Click on the dropdown box for the list and then choose the option you want. The following explains the classification options:

  • Classifications are based on the actual labels and certificates issued. The classification for a publication other than film is described with reference to the words of the legislation under which it was made. “Indecent except in the hands of”, “Indecent in the hands of” and “Indecent unless restricted to” “are translated to “R”. The original decisions retain the particular wording required by the legislation under which they were made.
  • No display conditions, descriptive notes, references to medium or references to classification body are included as part of a classification.
  • “Banned” includes classifications of “objectionable”, “indecent”, “unconditionally indecent”, “not approved”. Further searches under authority and medium will narrow results.
  • “All unrestricted” includes “unrestricted without rating”, “not indecent”, G, A, Y, GY, GA, PG and M.
  • “No decision” includes publications that have been withdrawn, are awaiting classification, or for which no decision exists.
  • A publication that received a combination of classifications will be found by searching under any component of the classification. For example, a film “restricted to persons 18 years of age for the purpose of exhibition at the 1998 New Zealand Film Festival” can be found by searching under“R18” or “R film festival”.
  • “R class of persons” does not include “R study”, “R film festival” or “R film society”.

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Decisions Database Summary Results

The Decisions database Summary screen presents you with the results of your basic or advanced search. The decision summary displays various details about a decision and provides links to related publications and any documents associated with the decision. If you click on a Related Publication link you will be take to the Decision Summary for that publication. If you click on a Associated Document link you will be able to view the associated document.

Be aware that some titles may have multiple or different classifications. You will need to refer to the date, medium and running time to find what you are looking for. For example a search for The Cell will return a classification of R16 on film, and R18 on DVD.

Sometimes a classification decision may change as a result of a decision of a review authority, for example a search for 8 mile will display two results for the cinema release:

  • One result will be from the Film and Literature Board of Review
  • One result will be from the Classification Office.

    • The Board of Review decision overrides the Classification Office decision.

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    Error Messages

    Occasionally a problem may occur with the operation of the Web site. If an error occurs you may be presented with an error message or error screen. If you are presented with an error message or error screen, please note down the error details and inform the Office of Film and Literature Classification web site administrator.

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    Document Viewer

    Both the Decision Summary Results screen and the Content Search Results screen provide Hypertext links to documents located in the database. By clicking on these links you will be presented with the Document Viewer page which allows you to view the contents of a document from within the browser.

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    The database is a work in progress. The historic information (prior to 1994) is incomplete. In a few cases entries may contain inaccuracies and where possible these are being corrected, as they are identified. If you find anything you think is an error, please notify the Classification Office at database@censorship.govt.nz