Motion Picture Rating System - Sweden

Sweden

Statens medieråd (the Swedish Media Council) is a government agency with the aims to reduce the risk of harmful media influences among minors and to empower minors as conscious media users. The classification bestowed on a film should not be viewed as recommendations on the suitability for children, as the law the council operates under (SFS 2010:1882) only mandates them to assess the relative risk to children’s well-being.

The council only allows a very limited amount of violence in films for very young children. Violence is generally seen as far more socially disruptive than consensual sexual acts, nudity or strong language. The classification process also includes assessments of film sequences that may have a terrifying effect on young children, including films and sequences that are difficult for children to understand and liable to cause confusion and fear. Since cinema films in most cases are subtitled and not dubbed in Sweden, the possibility for children to read the subtitles is sometimes an issue.

The council do not take into account the religious, political or moral attitude of films. Nor do they act as an arbiter of taste. Every film is classified in its own unique context and the age ratings are based on expertise and experience. This stands in contrast to, for example, USA where ratings are made to correspond to what parents see fitting. Combined, this can have the effect that some PG or PG-13 rated films in USA are being rated "15 years" in Sweden for violence, while some films getting an R in USA for containing profanity or depictions of sexuality are rated at 7 or 11 years, or even for all audiences.

The censorship of films for adults (over 15 years) was abolished when the National Board of Film Classification was merged into the Swedish Media Council on January 1, 2011. In practice however, the board had only censored a very limited number of films in the preceding two decades. Excluding pornography, the last time the board banned a motion picture was in 1996 and in 2002 it used its privilege to censor specific scenes for the last time.

It have never been strictly necessary to submit films for classification if they are to be screened for audiences over the age of 15 or at private gatherings (such as film festivals). However, an episode of Studio S in 1980 promoted a major moral panic on the violence in movies and a subsequent surge in the number of complaints to the authorities. This prompted a some new laws, making it illegal to rent or sell videos depicting realistic violence to children below the age of 15 and to make it a criminal offense to rent or sell videos containing unlawful depictions of violence, thus meaning that the distributor could be held responsible for the content. Both laws still apply, but to and through 2010, a film that had been rated by the board could not but be considered to be violate any laws regarding its content, so the distributors in practice sent all their films to the board for a classification to eliminate the risk that they would be held liable. Meanwhile, from a high of hundreds of complaints per year in the early 1990s, only a handful was made in the late 2000s and virtually none of those films was actually seen as being in violation with the law by the prosecutors or the courts. In view of this and to lessen the burden on the new agency, the law was changed so all films not seen as suitable for children by the council can be brought to court for its content, and the distributors' practice of sending all films for classification have seized.

The following categories are used:

• Btl (Barntillåten = Children allowed) – Suitable for all ages.

• 7 – Deemed non-harming for children of at least 7 years of age. Younger children are admitted if accompanied by an adult 18 or older.

• 11 – Deemed non-harming for children of at least 11 years of age. Children of at least 7 years of age are admitted if accompanied by an adult 18 or older.

• 15 – Not rated, means that no one under 15 years of age is admitted, may include strong violence, strong drug use, explicit depictions of sexual activity. This also includes pornography; however, that is usually not shown at ordinary cinemas.

The councils classification only apply for cinematic screening. So even though distributors usually align the recommendations on cases of videos or DVDs with the rating given by the council, they are unofficial. It is also common for television channels, rental shops and adult cinemas to use their own classifications to hinder persons below the age of 18 years to be exposed to pornography, such as Barnförbjuden ("Children Banned"), 18 år ("18 years") and Vuxenfilm ("movies for adults").