Filmmaker slams censors

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal">KOLKATA: After noted filmmaker Anand Patwardhan’s <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">War and Peace</span> was withdrawn at the last minute from the inauguration of the recent Kolkata International Short Film Festival, the censor board has now demanded six cuts. Patwardhan finds it unacceptable and is determined to fight back.<br />“What is happening to War and Peace is bound to affect every investigative filmmaker so if we surrender now, we will lose all our rights to free speech and thought,� he told TNN.<br />Patwardhan recalls the censor officer in Mumbai telling him the day before the Kolkata event of May 31, that the screening would be stopped. <br />“While other films with no censor clearance were shown, War and Peace was withdrawn. The Kolkata press was told that the ‘film had not arrived’, but we have a receipt.� <br />The film focuses on the danger of nuclear war in the subcontinent and the growing peace movement in India and Pakistan. <br />Patwardhan wonders whether the cuts requested would cover the ideas of Gandhi, with which the film begins and ends.<br />“The next step is to go before the revising committee of the censor board. If that fails I’ll go to the tribunal and if this also fails, to court.� But if the public cannot see the film, wouldn’t it foil its purpose? <br />“People will see through their pretensions about democracy. The film cannot be suppressed. They are just giving it more publicity each time they attempt to stop it.� </div> </div>