Nihalani, Uncensored

He went on to say, “I am very glad that after shouldering such a responsibility, I have returned to distribution and production, and everybody is eager to know why I am associated with this film. Especially after the media tagged me as a sanskaari man — why this film? You all haven’t watched this film and you think it’s an erotic picture, but every film has its own framework. The film industry is a dream, and how does one feel when one’s dreams do not come true? I heard the story from director Deepak Shivdasani at the idea stage and thought it was novel. The film is an eye-opener, based on true incidents of the film industry and its work culture. Deepak has exposed the industry.”

The story of a beautiful, aspiring star (played by south actor, Raai Laxmi, in her Bollywood debut) who is exploited by the film industry, and is seemingly the victim of the infamous casting couch, Nihalani described Julie 2 — which he is distributing — as an “adult family film”, by which he meant that all the adult members of a family can watch it together. “There is no vulgarity in the film. I am sanskaari, the soil of India has sanskaar, and without sanskaar, we are nothing,” he said, as some sections of the audience audibly sniggered, while his supporters, forming a flank near the doors, cheered loudly.

Moments of the press conference descended into a shouting match between certain mediapersons and Nihalani. But the former chairman of the CBFC took it in good humour, and before the final question was asked, Nihalani rose from his seat to mimic Shah Rukh Khan’s well-known open arms pose, directed at a journalist he could not spot. His smile died down quickly when the question was asked: How did a “lady-oriented” story such as the one in Julie 2 gain his attention? “I know why you are saying this. All I can tell you is that, there is no burkha here,” he said.