The decision of the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) to stop screening of controversial Malayalam movie S Durga till a re-examination is done is likely to affect the plan to have a screening of the movie at the International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK) to be held in Thiruvananthapuram from December 8 to 15 as a mark of protest against its exclusion from the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) which came to a close on Tuesday in Goa.
A screening of the movie, originally titled Sexy Durga and directed by Sanal Kumar Sasidharan, was reportedly held for the jury of the IFFI on Monday as per a Kerala High Court order and the board asked the film’s producers through a letter on Tuesday to resubmit the film, which had earlier awarded a U/A certificate with no cuts and 22 motes.
The CBFC had effectively stopped screening of the movie – not just at the Goa festival but all further screenings – reportedly due to fresh complaints about its new title, S Durga, from the IFFI jury. The complaint was about the hash-tag marks used to mask/alter the letters e, x and y of the original title.
According to the CBFC’s letter, the director had shown ‘S### Durga’ on the title card which the board said had totally different implications and were effectively undermining and attempting to defeat the very basis of the title registration. The movie’s director said the board’s move was part of what he called the Centre’s “dirty game”. “They seem me as an enemy,” he said.
The news about the CBFC decision came just a few hours after director Kamal, chairman of the Kerala State Chalachitra Academy, announced its decision to have a special screening of the Sasidharan film at the Thiruvananthapuram fest as a mark of protest against its exclusion from the Goa film festival that came to a close on Tuesday.
Announcing the decision to screen S Durga at the Thiruvananthapuram festival, Kamal said, “There is a clear political agenda behind the decision not to screen the film at the Goa festival even after the Kerala High Court issued an order to that effect.” He had also said Sasidharan had agreed to the screening of the film, which narrates the story of a hitchhiking couple.
Stating that Kerala had always expressed its resistance to the fascist tendency of banning art forms and films, Kamal said, “The special screening is part of the Kerala Government’s strong policy against fascism. There was politics behind the Central Information and Broadcasting Ministry’s decision to drop S Durga from the IFFI. We can’t accept this.”
Director Sasidharan had approached the High Court after S Durga was excluded from the Panorama section of the Goa film festival. Though a single-judge bench of the High Court directed the Centre to ensure screening of the movie at the IFFI, the I&B Ministry appealed in a division bench against that order.
The division bench, which on November 24 admitted the Ministry’s appeal, refused to stay the single-judge bench’s order but said the film could be screened after the jury viewed its certified version.