Censorship is happening
But is hard to notice and near impossible to prove.
Tracking incidents can make them visible. That is what this site is doing.
Censorship
Censorship of Screenwriters does not usually happen out in the open. But if the same case of silencing of your topic, theme or story-world happened to a couple of other as well, we can start doing something about it.
Only through strength in numbers are we able to register incidents.
Self-censorship
Is even harder to register. Oftentimes, we are unsure if our hesitation is in fact our own insecurity / imagination - forced upon us ?
Themes, topics, issues are silenced even before they are pitched - this is also what this site is helping to track.
For screenwriters — an incident, a pressure, or a chilling effect. Anonymous if you wish.
Is it safe? What happens to my testimony?
How do you prove that a decision to change or terminate your story was based on political influence, social preference or any other inappropriate motivation? Alone, you cannot. Together, we can.
About the Censorship Tracker
The Censorship Tracker is a Right to Write initiative of the Federation of Screenwriters in Europe (FSE).
It was created to make visible what usually stays invisible: the censorship and self-censorship experienced by screenwriters across Europe.
It collects first-person testimonies — a project refused or changed, a pressure received, a story softened or never written — and reads them against a shared analytical framework, so that isolated accounts become comparable and, in numbers, reveal patterns.
Its purpose is to give the FSE and its member guilds the evidence they need to speak to public institutions, policy-makers and civil society organisations.
The Right to Write Report
The Tracker builds on the FSE report Right to Write: Screenwriters and the Growing Threats to Freedom of Artistic Expression in Europe.
Published in March 2026, the report examines how threats already widely identified in the field of journalism and media freedom are also emerging, in more diffuse ways, within audiovisual creation.
It highlights recurring political patterns affecting media, public service broadcasters, cultural institutions and funding systems, and analyses their consequences for screenwriters.
The report also describes the risk of a self-censorship, "the chilling effect", where writers may anticipate constraints and adjust their creative choices before a project is even submitted, developed or commissioned.
Download the report →