British film reviewers were forced to watch the paint dry for 10 hours

In protest against the outdated tradition of movie censorship, British director Charlie Lyne made a film ... how the paint dries. The joke is that it is a long film. By law, censors are required to review every minute.

The British Board for Film Classification (British Board of Film Classification, BBFC) deals with censorship. Formerly, the British Council of Censors is the former name. He was healed in 1912 to check that there are no "indecent dances", "references to a controversial policy", "a man and a woman together in bed" and other forbidden images in the new films.

Today, the BBFC continues its activities and even prohibits the distribution of some films. By law, no film can be shown in UK cinemas without a BBFC certificate.
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Each certificate costs about £ 1000 for a regular film of standard length. For many independent directors, this is a very substantial amount.

BBFC Rate
Call for applications: £ 101.50
Per minute payment: £ 7.09

Fortunately, there is another side to the coin: censors are obliged to watch every minute of the film for which they have been paid.

To get revenge on the BBFC, Charlie Line organized a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter. Everyone could donate 7-14 pounds and add 1-2 minutes to a future film called Paint Drying , during which white paint dries on the brick wall. All managed to collect 5963 pounds, so that the duration of the film was 10 hours and 7 minutes (310 GB file).



Yesterday Charlie took part in a question-answer session (AMA) on the Reddit forum. He said that he successfully shot the film and filed it with the BBFC. Two censors watched it the day before yesterday and yesterday (they are allowed to view no more than 9 hours of material per day), and after that they will make their decision and issue a certificate within the next few weeks.

In general, trolling was successful.

To the question of whether the censors can work lightly and watch a movie on rewind, maybe insert a couple of hidden frames somewhere - just to check the quality of their work? Charlie Line replied: “Everyone who has seen Fight Club knows about calls through a subconscious flash frame. The BBFC auditors definitely watched Fight Club ( they censored him in 1999 ), I hope they will ask themselves the same question. Therefore, they will look carefully in order to make sure that they have not missed anything. BBFC reserved 607 minutes in their schedule for watching the entire movie. I believe that they are not going to deceive me and will not go to the bar instead. "

Charlie Line believes that with his film, he contributes to the fight against an outdated tradition. If someone tried to censor literature or music in the same way, there would be a noise. And in the case of movies, the censorship of the BBFC has been in force for 104 years, everyone is used to and considers the situation normal. “If this project makes people discuss the existing status quo - whether they support me or not - I will be happy,” the director added.