The Film Certification Appellate Tribunal (FCAT) has directed the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) to grant an Adu*t (A) certificate to the movie Lipstick Under My Burkha. The film certification body had earlier denied a certificate to the film earlier this year. The FCAT’s has, however, has sought some censorship in the film and said it should be granted certification only after voluntary and some additional cuts and deletions including bringing down durations of sex scenes. It has allowed the film to retain the cuss words though.
“We cannot lose sight that there is a thin line between creative and artistic expression being depicted in a natural sex scene. The same can be obliterated if the sexual scenes are continued for a long duration which may not be necessary or integral to the film,” it stated. The CBFC earlier, while denying certification to the film, called it “lady oriented”and said it is full of sexual content, abusive words and audio pornography, after which filmmakers Alankrita Srivastava and Prakash Jha had then approached the FCAT headed by headed by former judge Justice Manmohan Sarin.
In its judgment, the FCAT has said the examining committee and revising committee of the CBFC have “misdirected themselves in denying certification on the ground that the story of the film is women oriented. There cannot be any embargo on a film being women oriented or containing sexual fantasies and expression of the inner desires of women”. The film, starring Konkona Sen Sharma and Ratna Pathak Shah, revolves around the secret lives of four women of different ages in a small town in India as they search for different kinds of freedom.
