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CLASSIFICATION
IN PORTUGAL
1. AIMS OF CLASSIFICATION: Protection of
minors and information to the public. No censorship, no
cuts.
2. WHAT IS CLASSIFIED? : Films, Videos,
DVD, Digital Games and Theatre Plays
3. AND TV PROGRAMS? : On TV, classification
applies only to films: films rated 16 or 18 can only be
broadcasted after 11.00 p.m.. To other programs, apllies
self regulation.
4. CLASSIFICATION IS MANDATORY: Public
exhibition, rental or selling of films, videos, DVD or
games, depend of a license issued by the Ministry of Culture
through IGAC, after classification.
a) Films in movie theatres: the system is mandatory but
it's preview the parental guidance.
b) Videos, DVD, digital games: classification is mere information
(except for pornography: forbidden selling to people younger
than 18 years old)
5. THE RATES:
a) Age ratings: 4, 6, 12,
16, 18
b) Special ratings: "Pornography"
(P) and "Quality" (Q).
Special rates are cumulative to age rates.
6. CLASSIFICATION CRITERIA:
18- All pornography and those that explore
pathological forms of physic and/or psychic violence.
16- Those that explore excessivly aspects
of sexuality and/or physic and/or psychic violence.
12- Those that, by their extension and
complexity, could cause fatigue or psychic trauma on younger
children.
4- Those with short duration
and easy comprehension that don't cause frightening reactions.
6- All the others.
P- Pornographic: Exploitation of situations
and sexual activity with the prime goal of exciting the
audience and with low artistic quality. P1- hard-core:If
the sexual activity is explicit with exhibition of genitals;
P2 - soft-core: If the sexual activity is simulated.
Q- Quality: the factors in judgement are
artistic, thematic, pedagogical and techinal.
7. DIGITAL GAMES: CCE adopted the
PEGI system.
Classification continues beeing mandatory but the CCE rate
is equal to PEGI's. In Portugal, 7+ and 3+ are 6+ and 4+.
8. THE PORTUGUESE BOARD OF CLASSIFICATION- "COMISSÃO
DE CLASSIFICAÇÃO DE ESPECTÁCULOS"-CCE.
a) CCE is composed
by a President, a Vice-President and 43 members appointed
by the Minister of Culture.
b) The 43 members
are: 15 chosen by the Minister of Culture himself; 15 proposed
by the President of CCE; 13 representing other government departments.
c) Each
film, video, theatre play or digital game is classified
by a minimum of 3 and a maximum of 5 members of the board.
8. APPEAL: After the decision, may appeal:
a minimum of 3 other members of the board, the distributor
of the film (video, DVD, game...) or 100 citizens. In case
of appeal, the film or video will be seen and classified
again by an appeal group of 5 members of the board,
elected every year for that purpose. After this decision,
there is yet a possibility of appeal to the Minister of
Culture, that will decide based on the opinion of all the
board.
9. STATISTICS: in 2004, 4624 "products"
were classified, 14 appeals were presented and, in
10 cases, the appeal group decided according to the request.
10. PUBLIC OPINION: according to a recent
STUDY, 80,9%
of persons consider classification important, 74,5%
consider the existing age rates adequate and 86,2% would
like to have classification to all TV programs.
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