The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) chief executive David Austin has revealed how I Swear, the biopic of Scottish Tourette’s campaigner John Davidson, got its 15 certificate, despite an “unprecedented” number of uses of the “c-word”.
“I Swear came out quite recently, and the makers of I Swear were very keen to get a 15-age rating. The [BBFC] team watched it and said – this really should be a 15, but with the language of it, the number of uses of the c-word in particular, would be completely unprecedented… I thought I’m not going to decide this on my own.”
Austin was talking earlier this week at a joint BBFC and Vue event held at London’s Vue West End.
He discussed consulting BBFC president Natasha Kaplinsky on the film. “We felt, given the context in which the ‘c-words’ were used, in the Tourette’s context, it’s a true story of a man who developed Tourette’s when he was a teenager, very sympathetic, raising awareness and tolerance of Tourette’s, we decided with a 15 film.”
Kaplinsky added: “It is one of my favourite films of all time.”
To-date, Kirk Jones’ I Swear has grossed over £6m at the UK-Ireland box office for Studiocanal and won two awards at the British Independent Film Awards (Bifa).
The BBFC assigns age ratings on behalf of local authorities for films, trailers and streaming services. The classification categories are decided through public consultation.
“Cinema is back, baby”
“2024 was a record year for us in terms of films classified,” noted Austin. “We classified 1,256, which was a record in our 113-year history. This year is shaping up to be similar. I don’t know if we’ll break last year’s record but we are over 1,100 films already this year. In September, we had our biggest ever month, classifying 118 films in a month. So cinema is back, baby.”
Vue CEO founder Tim Richards was also feeling optimistic about the year ahead in cinema. “It’s been tough years, but as of the release of Wicked, everybody can remind me of this in a few years, but that is the beginning of the end [of the tough period]. I think when the history books are written in 10 years, we’ll look back at the watershed moment as being when Wicked was released [grossing $758m after a November 2024 release for Universal]. Wicked: For Good is already 30% above the first Wicked. Zootropolis came out, it did $500m [for Disney], although $275m of that was in China, but huge numbers… Next year, the floodgates are open.”
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