The interview with J.P. Portelli got off on the wrong foot.

“Your story,” (Officious censor kicks father and son out of cinema – TMIS, 26 August), he began, “is all fictitious and a lie.”

He then proceeded to confirm the main lines of the story, adding some clarifications.

The incident did happen, on 27 July.

Mr Portelli says he is no censor. There are no censors any more, he said, only a board to classify film and stage productions. Censorship has been abolished and he would not have accepted to become a member of the board if it were still censoring films. In the four years he has been a member of the board, not a single second has been cut from any film.

This is not the way things used to be, when films were butchered to be made acceptable to the widest audience possible.

Having said that, the law must always be obeyed. We do not allow children under 16 in pubs, nor can the board rate a film full of violence as a U film. One cannot solve the crisis of cinema attendances by allowing in anybody and everybody, at the expense of the under-12 generation.

Every time a blockbuster comes to the screen there are always pressures to give it a U certificate and the board is satisfied that many film classification boards abroad give films more or less the same rating the board gives them here in Malta.

As he explained in interviews he gave to Radju Malta and Birkirkara Radio, Harry Potter is no longer a children’s book. It has changed over the past seven years and Daniel Radcliff has grown up. The latest Harry Potter film being shown in Malta does have some scenes of violence.

Predictably, there was a concerted campaign to make the board issue a U certificate. The board refused to do so and even on appeal its decision was upheld. These are the classifications the same film got abroad: UK: 12A, USA: 13 PG, Holland: 12, Canada: 14, Germany: 12, Portugal: 12, Argentina: 16, later appealed to 13.

On 27 July, Mr Portelli went to the Embassy Cinema in Valletta, as he was one of the two board members who had not reviewed the film.

During the interval he noticed a couple with a small boy. Mr Portelli went out to the foyer and asked for the manager; a Miss Azzopardi approached him, he told who he was and asked her to do her duty with regard to the boy. He denies he was vociferous or rough, even though his voice is a trifle on the loud side.

Miss Azzopardi went and escorted the couple out, but the boy’s father said he wanted to speak to Mr Portelli. He admitted the boy was only 10 and a half years old, admitted they were wrong to take him to the cinema, apologised, shook hands and left. The matter ended there, or so Mr Portelli thought. The people present did not even notice what was going on as the whole matter was carried out unobtrusively and calmly.

Mr Portelli is unrepentant: he feels he acted both as a member of the board and also as a member of the public.