Censor stifles filmmakers

Censor continues to stifle filmmakers creativity and suppress non-conformism of documentary makers.

Film censor laws may no longer be called so officially, but they continue to stifle the creativity of Indian filmmakers and suppress the non-conformism of documentary makers.

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India no longer has a 'censor board' but a Central Board of Film Certification. But its approval for the screening of films is as mandatory as before and, if you are running off the beaten track, as tough to get as ever.

Feature and non-feature filmmakers regularly run into censorship trouble, sometimes for the most unlikely of reasons.

Producer-director-scriptwriter Manu Rewal's low-budget Chai Pani Etc, now included for screening at the 35th International Film Festival of India (IFFI) here, ran into trouble for odd reasons.

A film on Jayaprakash Narayan was not allowed to be screened on Doordarshan without cuts. The army has objected to its depiction in films.

Award-winning filmmaker Anand Patwardhan's War and Peace on the nuclearisation of South Asia, now being screened at the IFFI, was considered "subversive" by the censor board.

Patwardhan said in an interview with the National Film Development Council's journal Cinema In India: "A film considered subversive by the censor board last year won the National Award for best Non-Fiction Film this year."

Patwardhan was asked to make 21 cuts in War and Peace, which he refused.