The powers that be seem to be going to great (and absurd) lengths to halt the screening of Sanal Kumar Sasidharan’s controversial Malayalam film S Durga at the 48th International Film Festival of India (IFFI).
It was earlier reported that the IFFI jury consisting of three new members watched and passed the censored version of the film on Monday to be screened at IFFI as per the directive of the Kerala High Court. However, the officials at IFFI were still non-committal about when the film would be screened at the Festival, which concludes on Tuesday, 28 February.
The filmmaker has now received a letter from the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) ordering him not to exhibit S Durga as they would need to re-examine the film.
The CBFC has picked on a flimsy reason of the required title change from Sexy Durga to S Durga for not having been effectively carried out.
The reason given for the need to re-examine S Durga is as follows:
“...we now have received complaints from the IFFI jury at Goa that the title of the film on the title card is shown by the film maker as “S### Durga” (where the # means rectangular white boxes) which has totally different implications and are effectively undermining and attempting to defeat the very basis of the title registration and changes effected thereby.”CBFC
Almost on cue, the IFFI Festival Director shot off a mail to Sanal, stating that though “all steps were taken to ensure” that a screening of S Durga could take place at IFFI on Monday evening BUT now as a result of the orders of CBFC, the film cannot be exhibited till the issues are resolved.
As already expressed by Sanal in a Facebook post, the government seems to be on an all out war against its own citizen here.
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