Raj Amit Kumar says the move is like taking away “basic human rights”
Florida-based director Raj Amit Kumar’s debut film “Unfreedom,” starring Adil Hussain and Victor Banerjee in key roles espousing homosexuality, has been banned in India.
The 36-year-old director is the latest who has hit out at the certification process in recent times.
Disappointed at being unable to get the required clearance despite an appeal to the Appellate Tribunal, the filmmaker said such move by the Central Board of Film Certification is like taking away the “basic human rights.”
“What I am experiencing is tyranny, hypocrisy and irony of people… I don’t feel any film should be banned in the country. You can only give strict certification and you can remove certain things or the other depending on that,” Kumar said.
The film is a contemporary thriller that chronicles a lesbian love story set in New York and New Delhi and is said to be inspired by Faiz Ahmad Faiz’s poem, “Ye Dagh Dagh Ujala.”
Censor Board officials, emphasised that the movie had been denied a certificate by the Examining Committee (EC), but later a Revising Committee (RC) had agreed to give it ‘A’ certification with cuts. The filmmaker, they said, had then approached the Film Certification Appellate Tribunal (FCAT) which had upheld the decision of the Examining Committee.
The film is expected to hit North American theatres on May 29. American erotic romance Fifty Shades of Grey too failed to get a clearance for its release in India from the Censor Board.