Behind him, on a giant screen, the audience saw themselves featured on the web page of the Prime Minister's Office - live.

Mr Lee's candid camera moment held a serious point. Anyone can now be an amateur film-maker, capturing politics on film, and people will do so.

'So, we've got to allow political videos but with some safeguards,' he said. 'An outright ban is no longer sensible.'

Thanks to new media technologies, people can easily make videos and upload them on the Internet.

'This is how people communicate on the Web in daily life. They make videos, they pass clips around,' Mr Lee said in his National Day Rally speech on Sunday.

What will now make the cut with the censors: factual footage, documentaries and recordings of live events.

But some things still won't pass. 'If you make a political commercial so that it's purely made-up material, partisan stuff, footage distorted to create a slanted impression, I think those should still be off-limits,' he said.

'In between what is ok and what is not ok, there will be grey areas. But I think we can deal with this.'

Political films will be dealt with in ways similar to non-political films, with censorship and film classification standards, he said, with a panel to decide whether or not a political film would pass.

'The overriding consideration is to preserve the integrity, quality, and honesty of our political discourse,' he said.

Political films were banned 10 years ago, two years after Singapore Democratic Party chief Chee Soon Juan applied for a licence to sell a video-tape on the SDP.

Section 33 of the Films Act disallows the making, reproduction, distribution and screening of 'party political films'. Such films are defined as those favouring a political party or pushing a political end.

Mr Lee said political films were banned for a reason.

'Politics is a serious affair. We want voters to consider issues rationally, coolly...and think through decisions which affect your future and make a considered judgement,' he said.

'And our worry is that films are an emotive medium. The impact of seeing something on a film is quite different from reading something in cold print.

'It hits you viscerally. It engages your emotions before your thinking processes can kick in, and if you are watching it in a crowd, (it is) even more powerful.

'Then, passions can get stirred up and people can get carried away.'

The promise of some political films being allowed was cheered by film-maker Martyn See, who had two of his films banned in recent years.

'This is by far the most obvious relaxation of political space in Singapore in the past 20 years. It will lessen the climate of fear,' he said.

But Senior Research Fellow Tan Tarn How from the Institute of Policy Studies preferred there to be no conditions imposed.

'It doesn't make sense to assume that most people are most of the time not smart enough to tell the good from the bad, and truth from falsehood,' he said.

Still, film-maker Tan Pin Pin is happy with the progress.

'A gesture has been made, and I guess it's a positive thing. This is the start of a long journey, towards less frenetic governance,' she said.