Mumbai: Earlier, there was a split in the Examining Committee of the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) over the Anushka Sharma starrer, NH10, and its possible certification. After a screening on Monday, some members were ready to pass the film with a few cuts and an Adult certificate while others maintained that film had plenty of violence and abusive language, and shouldn’t be certified at all.
Following this, the producers took the film to the Revising Committee who watched the film on Wednesday and cleared it with an ‘A” certificate. “NH10 has been passed with a few audio cuts and a video cut that does not damage the film at all. They saw it completely in context and even appreciated it. It was a very reassuring revising committee,” said-Anurag Kashyap, who has co-produced the film with Anushka.
His business partner, Vikas Bahl, was equally jubilant. “The RC’s decision was unanimous. They understood what we were talking about and saw the larger picture,” he said. “Even the visual cut was minimal. The scene was retained, we were just told to edit it a bit. And many of the cuss words too have been retained.” This decision has gladdened not only the film’s makers but the film fraternity too. The development comes after the February 26 meeting of the Minister of State for I & B, Rajyavardhan Rathore with a Bollywood contingent, which included Anurag Kashyap, Mukesh Bhatt and Siddharth Roy Kapur. They were told by the minister to “ignore” CBFC Chairperson Pahlaj Nihalani’s order banning the use of certain cuss words and expressions.
The chief’s diktat also banned glorification of blood, violence against women and double meaning dialogue. NH10 is the story of a woman’s revenge, is peppered with expletives and gore. CBFC CEO, Shravan Kimar, points out that the idea is to disseminate information through the process of certification to a cinema loving population about the film’s content so it will facilitate the choices they make. “The idea is not to curb the creative freedom of the filmmaker,” he maintained.
(Mumbai Mirror)
