Hopes and Fears of Transformation: FOCINE and Informal Practices of Film Censorship in Colombia (1978–1993)

Film censorship is often considered principally as a regulatory instrument of nation-states and regarded as formalised through government agencies and institutions to control the movie consumption practices of citizens through what Foucault refers to as ‘techniques of government’. This chapter seeks to expand on studies of formal practices of film censorship by considering informal processes of content regulation as aligned with and enmeshed in the formal acts of states. Our case focuses on film in Colombia examined through a study of the production slate funded by the national film support body, which operated from 1978 to 1993, Compañía de Fomento Cinematográfico (FOCINE). Our analysis is interested in the exercise of power by FOCINE as an agent of the Colombian state. However, it is also concerned with the workings of regulation more broadly, not just as formalised in modes of governmental intervention, or what might be regarded as traditional forms of censorship. Here we focus on less direct and less obvious mechanisms of influence that can be discerned as also having played a substantial role in shaping the form and content of FOCINE’s films.