I hope for a positive outcome

Filmmaker Madhur Bhandarkar welcomes the censor certificate for 15 years and above and feels it should be implemented at the earliest.

Filmmaker Madhur Bhandarkar welcomes the censor certificate for 15 years and above and feels it should be implemented at the earliest.

The proposal to introduce a new censor certificate for the population aged 15 years and above is a welcome move. However,I am not sure whether this will really transform into reality. I have been following this particular piece of news for the past two-and-a-half years. I have heard people from the industry voice their assent to this proposal since then. However,we have yet to see a positive outcome after all this talk.

The Censor Board has been passing films with bold content and bolder titles over the past year,yet few movies continue to get affected because of an A adult certificate. For example,my recent film Dil Toh Baccha Hai Ji was given an A certificate simply because they felt that the theme was adult. But looking at the reactions from people within the industry and the audience who have watched the film,I feel that the A certificate was a bit harsh. After DTBHJs release,most distributors asked me what is so adult in the movie? I did not have an answer. I remember a similar thing had happened when Fashion was released.

According to me,there is a loss of at least Rs 5 crore because of this decision. If there had been a Censor certificate that allowed people over 15 instead of 18 to watch the movie,it would have increased footfalls and reached a wider audience.

The main problem is that there are two sets of rules for two mediums. One simply has to look at the type of content dished out in reality shows and various other programmes on television to know that TV has more disturbing scenes and dialogues than movies. But there is no way of censoring that content. In fact,one has to pay tickets to watch a film so that parents can monitor whether their kids need to watch a particular movie or not. On television,the content is free and there are hardly any restrictions on kids once parents step out. I know that everyone is watching pirated DVDs of DTBHJ on TV right now when,in fact,they could have seen the movie in theatres if it did not have an A certificate. And dont even get me started on the kind of stuff available on the Internet.

I also dont understand why the censors feel we are going against Indian culture in our movies. As a filmmaker,I can assure you that we keep the Censor Boards reaction in mind while making films. We also have to think about how the society will react to our films because they form our audience. I sincerely hope that the Censor Board and the other bodies involved in the decision-making will implement the proposed certificate as soon as possible.

As told by Madhur Bhandarkar