The makers of An Insignificant Man – a movie that documents Arvind Kejriwal’s journey, which was in the news following a row with the CBFC – welcome the changes in India’s film censor board. However, they rue that it won’t affect the status of their yet-to-be-certified movie.
On Saturday, they tweeted their reactions to Pahlaj Nihalani getting sacked, who as the censor board chief had asked them to get a no-objection certificate (NOC) from Prime Minister Narendra Modi, former Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dixit and Kejriwal himself, before the movie could be granted a censor certificate.
Nihalani was on Friday sacked by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry, which has appointed writer-adman Prasoon Joshi as the chairperson of the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC), apart from bringing in National Award winning-actress Vidya Balan as one of the board members.
Reacting to this, the makers said in tweets:
Ppl who have been asking us if the change at the censor board will help the release of “An Insignificant Man” – sadly the answer is “No” 1/n
— An Insignificant Man (@aimthemovie) August 12, 2017
Our film has already been seen by 2 CBFC committees (i) Examining Committee (ii) Revising Committee. Both reacted adversely to the film 2/n
— An Insignificant Man (@aimthemovie) August 12, 2017
The EC refused to talk to us while the RC asked us to get NOCs & bleep out names of Congress & BJP. That’s their final word on our film 3/n
— An Insignificant Man (@aimthemovie) August 12, 2017
Our only hope right now is the FCAT. We appealed against the CBFC’s decision at the FCAT and our hearing has already taken place. 4/n
— An Insignificant Man (@aimthemovie) August 12, 2017
Our hearing took place last month & we presented our case to the FCAT. We are now awaiting the final verdict from them. Fingers crossed 5/n
— An Insignificant Man (@aimthemovie) August 12, 2017
The decision to change the censor board chief is a welcome first step towards (hopefully) overhauling India’s censorship process. 6/n
— An Insignificant Man (@aimthemovie) August 12, 2017
So far, political films hav unfortunately faced resistance from every government and every censor board in India. We need urgent reforms 7/n
— An Insignificant Man (@aimthemovie) August 12, 2017
Khushboo Ranka and Vinay Shukla had begun their journey to make An Insignificant Man by following Kejriwal on his election campaign in late 2012. Their movie has been featured at various film festivals, but they still await a release in India.
