Pictures on paper: Censoring cinematic culture through the Bangladesh Film Club Act

The Bangladesh Film Club Act of 1980 set out to regulate and control the flourishing film society movement during the years of military dictatorship. This Act illustrates the response of the state to the social formations that were called into being around a canon of national and international art films. In this article, I explore the paperwork generated out of this Act and suggest it allows a reconsideration of film censorship as acting upon particular film texts towards an understanding of the way censorship can be used to respond to anxieties generated by the thriving of certain film cultures. A focus on the images and logos that accompanied the bureaucratic submissions to the Film Censor Board by film societies illuminates a core idea within the film society movement: that ‘good’ or art film would generate new social formations and produce political transformation. It is exactly to this threat that the Film Club Act responded, thus illustrating the efficacy of the film societies’ visual register as a mobilizing force.