Censorship a tool for big fish: Directors

KOLKATA: Actor-director Amol Palekar moving the Supreme Court to seek a complete revamp of the Cinematograph Act has had a ripple effect in the city, especially among those who had locked horns with the local Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC). Kolkata directors are glad Palekar’s move has also exposed the “war the big fish in the industry wage against small independent directors by using censorship as a weapon of destruction”.
According to Suvendu Ghosh, who directed a film on demonetisation titled ‘Shunyota’, censorship rules are abused to assure market monopoly by the biggies.“When small films get into a censor trouble, no big production house or director stands up for us. That’s because it suits them if we aren’t allowed to enter the market. When we have to make cuts keeping in mind CBFC recommendations, it weakens our films. The edited films are less of a threat to those who enjoy a market monopoly,” he said.
While CBFC has been a favourite punching bag during any censorship trouble, the Cinematograph Act from 1952 has curiously remained unchallenged for 47 years. Amitabh Chakraborty, director of ‘Cosmic Sex’, said censorship guidelines in India have forcefully debarred many directors from exploring interesting content and form in their cinema. “Censorship is a conspiracy between the ‘chocolate box directors’ and the government so our kind of films can’t do theatrical business,” Chakraborty alleged.
In order to get a censor certificate for ‘Cosmic Sex’, Chakraborty had to edit and blacken some shots in his film. Yet, pirated copies the unedited ‘Cosmic Sex’ gets screened very often on local cable channels. This, Chakraborty said, only exposes the “double standards” of the government.
With the advent of smartphones in recent times, Kolkata’s youngsters are accessing all kinds of uncensored content online. “But thanks to CBFC guidelines, we can’t provide similar content to them in theatres. Potboilers are raking in the moolah with theatrical releases while films made by us have to battle CBFC for certification needed for screenings,” Chakraborty added.
Director of ‘Jai Shree Ram’, Jul Mukherjee, who ran into trouble with his film’s screening in Behrampore, is still having problems getting his film cleared. “There is a big nexus between established directors, production houses and CBFC. They use censorship to silence our voice. Whenever they feel threatened by us, they use the censorship card to prevent screening/release of our movies. No big names in Kolkata except filmmaker Q agree to take on a stand against this nexus and fight the battle for small independent directors like us,” Mukherjee said.