Cinema e libertà: dalla censura preventiva al movie rating system

The decree 7 December 2017, no. 203, implementing the so called cinema law (L. 14 November 2016, no. 220) abolished film censorship and introduced a classification system for audiovisual works carried out by industry. Public authorities have a mere power of control. In its first years of life censorship depended on political, religious or ideological reasons in the broad sense. By the law no. 161/1962 it became only moral censure, since it protected common decency, a vague and changing public interest enshrined in Article 21 of the Constitution The new movie rating system aims only to protect minors and draws inspiration from the Anglo-Saxon countries. However, in USA and UK the adopted model is self-regulation, that is selfcensorship: the classification of films is carried out only by industry and there is no public intervention. In Italy there is a mixed public-private system: its implications are still to be verified. The paper aims to investigate the reasons that led to the abandonment of the previous model of preventive censorship and to understand if the actual regulatory intervention signals a real change of paradigm, in which the State confines itself to recommending and suggesting and no longer to prohibit.