There is no respite from the sanksari scissors. Not even after the much celebrated exit of Pahlaj Nihalani from the Censor Board. Two films, Nude and S Durga (original title, sexy Durga) were dropped last minute from the list of feature films to be screened at the 48th International Film Festival of India, apparently for their provocative titles.
Ravi Jadhav directed Marathi film, Nude – based on the lives of women who pose as models for painters and sculptors and Sanal Kumar Sasidharan’s S Durga that talks about misogyny in Kerala society reportedly had the jury excited about its content. In fact, the jury liked Nude so much that they reportedly wanted it to be the opening film of the festival. Now the opening film, as informed by the Ministry’s press statement is Vinod Kapri’s Pihu.
A 13-member team headed by Kahani directed Sujoy Ghosh watched over 150 films to zero in on 26 feature films that would be screened at IFFI between November 20 and November 28. However, the omission of Nude and S Durga has left the members disappointed. According to a Telegraph report the jury members have written to the Ministry requesting it to reconsider the decision.
Writer Apurva Asrani who is also a member of the jury speaking to inuth he said: “I had no idea these films had been dropped till yesterday. Also, I learned from the new opening film from the press. I have written to the federation expressing my disappointment”.
Asrani also insisted that there was nothing controversial about the content of the films.
“Nude & Sexy Durga are important films for our society and present women with utmost dignity and respect. I sincerely hope the ministry would reconsider this move and uphold the decision of the jury,” he added.
Sasidharan, however, isn’t surprised that his film was dropped. Telegraph quoted him as saying:
“I had expected this to happen as this government is blindly following a majoritarian principle and they would not look beyond the title though the film has nothing to do with the goddess.”
Sasidharan was asked to change the title of films from Sexy Durga to S Durga, something he agreed to do only because it was cleared without any cuts, again indicating that even the Censor Board gave a clean chit to the content of the film.
Final list of films to be screened in the Indian Panorama section. Source: PIB
Interestingly, Rajesh Kumar Singh, a member of the preview committee that chooses entries from the Indian Panorama section for the international competition at IFFI, had on November 10 questioned the “artistic merit” of Sexy Durga. Singh who describes himself as an “ultra liberal and proud Hindu” in his Twitter bio even tagged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to draw his attention to the matter.
Take a look at his tweets.
IFFI has always been associated with controversies. In 2015, the Indian Panorama section at IFFI opened with a rather controversial Sanskrit film Priyamanasam, which was rejected by the International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK) for allegedly promoting Hindutva ideology. In the same year, IFFI made news after FTII students protested against the government hosted film festival by organising a parallel film festival just kilometres away from its venue.
However, this time a unanimous creative call taken by the jury seems to have been challenged. It remains to be seen if the Information and Broadcasting Ministry headed by Smriti Irani comes out with a statement on why it chose to omit these two films.
