S Durga won’t be screened at IFFI after CBFC objection
Sanal Kumar Sasidharan’s fight to have his Malayalam film S Durga screened at the 48th International Film Festival of India (IFFI) failed due to fresh title-related issues raised by the Central Board for Film Certification (CBFC). In a fresh twist to the S Durga saga, IFFI director Sunit Tandon said the film could not screened at the festival which closes on Tuesday.
Tandon’s letter to Sasidharan said: “Following the (jury) screening, certain issues related to the certification of the film with reference to the title of the film were raised. This was referred to the CBFC for clarification. As a consequence to the orders of CBFC, the film cannot be exhibited till the issues are resolved.”
The film was dropped from the screening schedule of the Indian Panorama section of the IFFI along with another film Nude, triggering controversy. Sasidharan intensified his fight for justice with a petition at the Kerala High Court last week. The court directed IFFI to screen the film at the festival after a censored version of the film was screened for the jury. Sources say, the jury voted 7-4 in favour of screening the film at the festival late on Monday night even as the festival was scheduled to end on the subsequent day.
The CBFC has now claimed that the change in title from Sexy Durga to S Durga and then to S### Durga was problematic and that the Indian Panorama jury which watched the film on Monday had complained about the changes in the title. “We have received complaints from the IFFI jury at Goa that the title of the film on the title card is shown by the filmmaker as S### Durga which has totally different implications and are effectively undermining and attempting to defeat the very basis of the title registration and changes effected thereby,” said Pratibha A, the CBFC regional officer from the Thiruvananthapuram division.
The CBFC communique to producer Shaji Mathew also directs that the film should not be exhibited because of violations under Rule 33 of the Cinematograph (Certification) Rules 1983. Meanwhile, Sasidharan and actor Kannan Nayar staged a token protest against the refusal to screen their film at the festival. “It is a bias we are facing. Our film is not Sexy Durga now, it is Sexy Democracy. They are imposing silence on us. They think it is just a filmmaker and a film they are silencing. That is when you will realise how serious the threat is,” Sasidharan said.
