Today we announced two winners of our CBBFC insight competition. Seven-year-old Josie Almond of Cathedral Primary School in Bristol came joint first for her Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (PG) illustration and CBBFC insight explaining what parts of the film might unsettle younger audiences.

Joint winner alongside Josie is 10-year-old William Davis of Wetherby Preparatory School in London, who used CBBFC insight to give vivid descriptions of merciless hacking, stake burning and peasant revolting in the DVD The Hollow Crown: Henry VI Part 1 (12). BBFC Chief Executive David Austin and BBFC President Patrick Swaffer, whose signatures appear on all cinema film black cards, helped judge the final winning entries.
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We launched the competition in March, challenging children and young people to show us using words and/or pictures, what information they would like to see in CBBFC insight before they watch a film at the cinema, on Blu-ray/DVD or online.

CBBFC insight is published on our website especially for children, cbbfc.co.uk. It explains in a child-friendly way, the key classification issues in a film and why it received the age rating it did.

Lucy Brett, Head of Education, BBFC said: "It has been really useful hearing the sort of words younger film viewers use when talking about classification issues in films. We asked our examiners and compliance officers who write CBBFC insight to help judge the competition and fed back the ideas we received to our own staff to help inform how CBBFC insight is written.

"We had some fantastic competition entries and were really impressed with the level of detail and colourful descriptions children included. Issues the children highlighted included disturbing sequences, scary characters and bad language. They also pointed out issues that weren't present in some films to help explain why they are suitable for younger viewers for example, no dangerous behaviour or discrimination."

Entries to the competition came from children and young people aged from 6 to 18, though the vast majority were from 7 to 12 year olds. Entries came from towns and cities across the UK including Mansfield, Brighton, London, Lesmahagow, Wetherby and Stonehaven. Over half the entries were about 12A films, with the remainder spread between U and PG content.

The shortlisted entries provided insight for a variety of films and home entertainment products ranging from family favourites to recent blockbusters and more educational works such as Shakespeare adaptations including: Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban (PG), Minions (U), The Jungle Book (2016) (PG), Tim Burton’s Alice In Wonderland (PG), Captain America: The Winter Soldier (12A), Brave (PG), Back To The Future (PG), Stargate (PG and 12), The Hollow Crown: Henry VI Part I (12), and Captain America: Civil War (12A).

We launched child-friendly CBBFC insight to enable children and parents to check the classification issues in a film together, before they decide whether it is suitable for them, or the whole family. Some BBFCinsight includes examples of bad language or descriptions that might be unsuitable for younger children, so CBBFC insight is adapted to make it appropriate for them and to include other issues that children in particular want to know about. To improve this service we wanted to ask children what sort of things they want to know about before they watch a film, be it creepy crawlies, sad moments or scary characters.