Why were these Indian movies banned, and what made them so controversial in the first place? From bold depictions of sexuality and violence to hard‑hitting political commentary, several films have been blocked, delayed or heavily censored by authorities and pressure groups over the decades.
In this Cinema Awards Archive deep dive, we look at why
certain Indian movies were banned—whether by the Central Board of Film
Certification (CBFC), by state governments or through unofficial “mob
censorship”—and what those decisions say about free expression, changing social
values and the limits of what mainstream audiences are allowed to see.
Some of these titles were eventually released with cuts,
some remain almost impossible to watch, and others live on as cult classics
precisely because of the controversy they caused.
1. Aandhi (1975)
Aandhi (transl. 'Storm')
is a 1975 Indian political drama film starring Sanjeev Kumar and Suchitra Sen,
and directed by Gulzar. At the time it was alleged that the film was based on
the life of the then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and her relationship with her
estranged husband, but in reality, only the look was inspired by the politician
Tarkeshwari Sinha and Indira Gandhi.
The story is based on a chance meeting of an estranged
couple after several years, when wife Aarti Devi, now a leading politician
happens to stay in the hotel run by her husband during an election campaign.
The movie was not allowed a full proper release when Mrs.
Gandhi was in power. The film was banned during the national emergency of 1975
a few months after its release. This film was banned on the alleged grounds of
violation of the Model Election Code of Conduct, claiming it can cause damage
to the reputation of the Congress party. So Election Commission stopped the
film from releasing.
The ban got further added with the declaration of National
Emergency. The ban immediately made the film a national topic. After her defeat
in the 1977 national elections, the ruling Janata Party cleared it and had it
premiered on the state-run television channel.
It proved to be an important film in the career of Sen, and
also her last Hindi film, as she retired from films altogether in 1978.
At the 23rd Filmfare Awards, she was nominated for Filmfare Award for Best Actress, while Sanjeev Kumar won the Filmfare Award for Best Actor. The film itself won the Filmfare Award for Best Film (Critics).
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2. Kissaa Kursee Kaa (1977)
Kissa Kursi Ka (transl. Tale
of Throne) is a 1977 Indian Hindi-language political satire film directed by
Amrit Nahata, who was a member of Indian parliament and produced by Badri
Prasad Joshi. The film was a satire on the politics of Indira Gandhi and her
son Sanjay Gandhi and was banned by the Indian Government during the Emergency
period and all prints were confiscated. Music of the film was composed by
Jaidev Verma.
A political spoof, the film was banned by the Congress
government for lampooning the Emergency. The master prints and all copies was
lifted from the Censor Board office and burned by Sanjay Gandhi supporters.The
only surviving print was made available on its TV Telecast on Zee TV. The movie
was later remade with a different cast.
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3. Bandit Queen (1994)
Bandit Queen is a 1994 Indian Hindi-language biographical
action-adventure film based on the life of Phoolan Devi as covered in the book
India's Bandit Queen: The True Story of Phoolan Devi by the Indian author Mala
Sen.
The film won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film
in Hindi, Filmfare Critics Award for Best Movie and Best Direction for that
year. The film was premiered in the Directors' Fortnight section of the 1994
Cannes Film Festival, and was screened at the Edinburgh Film Festival. The film
was selected as the Indian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 67th
Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee.
In India, the film grossed ₹206.7 million ($5,833,545). In
the United States and Canada, the film grossed $399,748[12] (₹14,164,271).
Combined, the film grossed approximately ₹221 million ($6.23 million)
worldwide.
This was banned by the Indian authorities due to its graphic
scenes of sex and violence. It also incurred the wrath of its own subject,
Phoolan Devi, who objected to the fact that she hadn't been invited to see the
film. Devi claimed it was riddled with inaccuracies.The film became banned due
to its content.
It was later re-released theatrically and the CBFC cut out about 2 minutes of profanity and shortened all rape scenes for an 'A' (adults) rating in 1995. 17 minutes was cut for a U/A rating for television.
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4. Fire (1996)
Fire is a 1996 Indo-Canadian erotic romantic drama film
written and directed by Deepa Mehta, starring Shabana Azmi and Nandita Das. It
is the first installment of Mehta's Elements trilogy; it is succeeded by Earth
(1998) and Water (2005).
The film is loosely based on Ismat Chughtai's 1942 story,
"Lihaaf" ("The Quilt").[3] Fire is one of the first
mainstream Bollywood films to explicitly show homosexual relations, and the
first to feature a lesbian relationship.[4][5] After its 1998 release in India,
activists staged several protests, setting off a flurry of public dialogue
around issues such as homosexuality and freedom of speech
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5. Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love (1996)
Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love is a 1996 Indian historical
erotic romance film co-written, co-produced, and directed by Mira Nair. The
first portion of the film is based on "Utran" ("Hand Me
Downs"), a short story in Urdu by the Indian writer Wajida Tabassum.[3]
The film takes its title from the ancient Indian text, the Kama Sutra.
Declan Quinn won the 1998 Independent Spirit Award for Best
Cinematography for his work in the film. Kama Sutra was nominated for the
Golden Seashell award at the 1996 San Sebastián International Film Festival and
was screened at the Cannes Film Festival.
The film generated controversy at the time of its release and was banned
in India due to its erotic theme and sexual content.
The director Mira Nair suffered approximately 2 years
bringing the film from censorship to lawsuits, and to the highest court due to
the film's sexual content, the C.B.F.C. (Central Board of Film Certification)
banned the film before being passed with an 'A' (18+) certificate in 1997 with
small cuts to nudity made and all sex scenes reduced. After cuts were made to
the English-language version, all Indian dubbed versions have this cut version,
and no further cuts were made. The film was released theatrically in India in
February 1998. It remains cut in India, but uncut worldwide.
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6. The Pink Mirror (2003)
The Pink Mirror, titled Gulabi Aaina in India, is an Indian film drama produced and directed by Sridhar Rangayan. It is said to be the first Indian film to comprehensively focus on Indian transsexuals with the entire story revolving around two transsexuals and a gay teenager's attempts to seduce a man, Samir (Rufy Baqal). The film explores the taboo subject of transsexuals in India which is still much misunderstood and ridiculed.
In 2003, the Central Board of Film Certification banned this
film. The censor board cited that the film was 'vulgar and offensive'. The
filmmaker appealed twice again unsuccessfully. The film still remains banned in
India, but was screened at numerous festivals all over the world and won
awards. The critics have applauded it for its 'sensitive and touching portrayal
of marginalized community'.
India's foremost gay activist Ashok Row Kavi says in his
review, "The wonder is that it was not made before. The reality is that it
is here now". India's leading newspaper, The Indian Express, wrote,
"This is more than just the 'peeping into the closet' that Rangayan
intended. It's almost throwing the doors wide open for the world to look
in!"
The film has received tremendous support and critical
acclaim from reviewers, festival directors and global audiences. It was
screened at more than 70 international film festivals and won couple of awards.
The film is also used as part of University archives and libraries as resource
material in academic courses.
Since The Pink Mirror, its director, Sridhar Rangayan, has
made 5 more films dealing with gay and transgender people:
Yours Emotionally (2006) is a film about a passionate love
story between a British Asian from UK and a small town Indian youth. The film
received good reviews for its bold and groundbreaking narrative. It has been
released on DVD by Waterbearer Films.
68 Pages (2007) is a film about the lives of five people who
fight all odds to survive. It is about stigma and discrimination faced by HIV+
people – a transsexual bar dancer, a commercial sex worker, a gay couple, a
heterosexual ID user and a municipality sweeper. The film derives its name from
68 pages of a counselors diary. This film had its world premiere at the
International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK 2007) in December 2007.
Purple Skies (2014) is a 2014 movie directed by Sridhar
Rangayan and produced by Public Service Broadcasting Trust and Solaris
Pictures. It documents the opinions of lesbians, bisexuals and trans men in
India. It was broadcast on Doordarshan in 2015.
Breaking Free is a 2015 film directed by Sridhar Rangayan
and produced by Solaris Pictures. In this documentary, filmmaker and gay
activist Sridhar Rangayan embarks on a personal journey to expose the human
rights violations faced by the LGBTQ community in India due to a draconian law
Section 377 and homophobic social mores of a patriarchal society. The film was
selected to be part of the Indian Panorama (non-Fiction) and screened at
International Film Festival of India in 2015. It won the Rajat Kamal National
Award for Best Editing (Non-Fiction) in 2016 for its editors Pravin Angre and
Sridhar Rangayan. It also won the Barbara Gittings Human Rights Award at qFLIX
Philadelphia in 2016.
Evening Shadows (2018) is a movie set in South India and
Mumbai, 'Evening Shadows' is a tender heartwarming story about a mother-son
bond that has to withstand the ravages of time, distance and truths.
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7. Paanch (2003)
Paanch (transl. Five)
is a 2003 Indian crime thriller film written and directed by Anurag Kashyap in
his directing debut, starring Kay Kay Menon, Aditya Srivastava, Vijay Maurya,
Joy Fernandes, and Tejaswini Kolhapure. The film is loosely based on the 1976–77 Joshi-Abhyankar serial murders in Pune.
Paanch never got a theatrical or home-video release. The
Central Board of Film Certification objected to the film's violence, depiction
of drug abuse, and bad language. After
some cuts, the film was cleared in 2001, but despite the director's protests it
wasn't approved for release. The story was deemed too disturbing for the
general public and the production lacked the budget for reshoots. Paanch was
later made available through torrent websites and screened at several film
festivals after being released as web series.
Paanch was screened at Filmfest Hamburg in 2003, Osian's
Cinefan Festival of Asian and Arab Cinema as closing film in 2005, Indian Film
Festival of Los Angeles in 2006 and at Jagran Film Festival in 2016.
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8. Black Friday (2004)
Black Friday is a 2004 Indian Hindi-language crime film
written and directed by Anurag Kashyap. Based on Black Friday: The True Story
of the Bombay Bomb Blasts, a book by Hussain Zaidi about the 1993 Bombay
bombings, it chronicles the events that led to the blasts and the subsequent
police investigation. Produced by Arindam Mitra of Mid-Day, the film stars
Pawan Malhotra, Kay Kay Menon, Aditya Srivastava, Kishor Kadam and Zakir
Hussain.
Black Friday premiered at the 2004 Locarno International Film Festival and was supposed to be released the same year in India. However, after a petition filed by a group accused of the 1993 bomb blasts challenging the film's release, the Bombay High Court issued a stay. Until judgement was delivered on the case, it could not be released. On 9 February 2007, after the verdict was announced, the Supreme Court of India allowed its release.
The film received critical acclaim. It won the Grand Jury
Prize at the Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles and was a nominee for the
Golden Leopard award at the Locarno International Film Festival. Made on a
production budget of ₹6.5 crore (US$810,000), it grossed a total of ₹8 crore
(US$1.0 million) at the box office.
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9. Hava Aney Dey (Let the Wind Blow) (2004)
Hava Aney Dey (English: Let the Wind Blow) is a 2004 Indian
Hindi-language drama film written and directed by Partho Sen-Gupta. It stars
Aniket Vishwasrao, Nishikant Kamat, Tannishtha Chatterjee and Rajshree Thakur
in the lead roles. The film was shot on location in the northern suburbs
(Vikhroli and Andheri East) of Mumbai, India, in October–November 2003 with a
mixed crew composed of French and Indian technicians. It is an Indo-French
co-production between Santocha Productions, Paris and Mystique Media Ltd,
Mumbai and Independent Movies LTD, Mumbai. It was also funded partly by the
Fonds Sud, of the French Foreign Ministry and the French Cultural Ministry. It
was post-produced partly in Mumbai and Paris.
It premièred at the Berlinale (Berlin International Film
Festival) in 2004 and won awards at other important international film
festivals.
Hava Aney Dey is part of the Global Film Initiative's Global
Lens 2008 Film Lineup of ten award-winning narrative, feature films from
Argentina, China, Croatia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Lebanon, Philippines and
South Africa. Global Lens 2008, its fifth year, premièred at the Museum of
Modern Art, (MOMA) New York City in January, before embarking on a year-long
tour of over 30 cities across the United States.
The Indian Film Censor Board refused to give it a release
certificate without a long list of sound and picture cuts reducing about 20
minutes of the film. The director refused to accept the censor decision, as it
would destroy the film with the abrupt cuts and sound mutes. It was never
released in India.
The film was never officially screened in India as it was
pulled out at the last minute (despite the selection by the festival) from the
Cinefan film festival in New Delhi in 2005 by the censors. Indian filmmakers,
artists, writers opposed to censorship continue to fight for the freedom to
express themselves.
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10. Parzania (2005)
Parzania (translation: Heaven and hell on earth) is a 2007
Indian drama film co-written and directed by Rahul Dholakia; David N. Donihue
is the other co-writer. The film featured Naseeruddin Shah and Sarika in the
lead roles, while Corin Nemec and Raj Zutshi played supporting roles. Made on a
budget of US$700,000, the film was shot in Ahmedabad and Hyderabad.
The film is inspired by the true story of a ten-year-old
Parsi boy, Azhar Mody (represented in the film as the character Parzaan
Pithawala) who disappeared after the 28 February 2002 Gulbarg Society massacre
during which 69 people were killed and which was one of many events in the
communal riots in Gujarat in 2002. The film traces the journey of the Pithawala
family while trying to locate their missing son.
The film was premiered at 36th India International Film
Festival in Goa on 26 November 2005, before being released nationwide on 26
January 2007.It won National film award in 2007 for best director Rahul
Dholakia and Best actress to Sarika
Because the film was about communal riots in Gujarat, the
film was purposefully not released there, as the cinema owners refused to
screen it, fearing backlash. After an initiative by ANHAD, a civil rights
group, the film was screened at some places in the state after April 2007.
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11. Water (I) (2005)
Water is a 2005 drama film written and directed by Deepa
Mehta, with screenplay by Anurag Kashyap. It is set in 1938 and explores the
lives of widows at an ashram in Varanasi, India. The film is also the third and
final installment of Mehta's Elements trilogy. It was preceded by Fire (1996)
and Earth (1998). Author Bapsi Sidhwa wrote the 2006 novel based upon the film,
Water: A Novel, published by Milkweed Press. Sidhwa's earlier novel, Cracking
India was the basis for Earth, the second film in the trilogy.
Water is a dark introspect into the tales of rural Indian
widows in the 1940s and covers controversial subjects such as child marriage,
misogyny and ostracism. The film premiered at the 2005 Toronto International
Film Festival, where it was honoured with the Opening Night Gala, and was
released across Canada in November of that year. After several controversies
surrounding the film in India, the Indian censor boards cleared the film with a
"U" certificate. It was released in India on 9 March 2007.
The film stars Seema Biswas, Lisa Ray, John Abraham and Sarala Kariyawasam in pivotal roles and Manorama, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Waheeda Rehman, Raghuvir Yadav and Vinay Pathak in supporting roles. Featured songs for the film were composed by A. R. Rahman, with lyrics by Sukhwinder Singh and Raqeeb Alam. After Rahman quit the film following nationwide controversy, the background score was composed by Mychael Danna, although the songs which Rahman had composed before opting out were retained.
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12. Sins (2005)
Sins is a 2005 English-language Indian drama film directed
and produced by Vinod Pande. It stars Shiney Ahuja and Seema Rahmani. The film
is based on a news story that Pande read in 1988 about a Kerala priest
sentenced to death on sexual harassment and murder charges. The film depicts
the unconventional passionate affair of a young girl with an older priest.
Deciding to keep their love story confidential, things take such a twist that
their love story takes a perpetual transformation into a story marked by jealousy,
hatred, and treachery.
The film has a few controversial topless scenes, as a result
of which it received an A certificate from the censor board of India. The film
depicting a Catholic priest romantically involved with a young woman, was
protested against by those that felt it was a negative portrayal of Catholicism
and indecent. Catholic Secular Forum filed a public interest litigation to
stall its release but court cleared the film.
Released on 25 February 2005 on 50 screens, the film was commercially
unsuccessful.
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13. Firaaq (2008)
Firaaq (English:
Separation) is a 2008 Indian Hindi-language drama film written and directed by
Nandita Das. It is set one month after the 2002 violence in Gujarat, India and
looks at the aftermath in its effects on the lives of everyday people. It
claims to be based on "a thousand true stories". Firaaq means both
separation and quest in Arabic. The film is the directorial debut of actress
Nandita Das and stars Naseeruddin Shah,
Deepti Naval, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Inaamulhaq, Nassar, Paresh Rawal, Sanjay Suri,
Raghubir Yadav, Shahana Goswami, Amruta Subhash and Tisca Chopra.
The film has largely been well received locally and
internationally. Firaaq won three awards at the Asian Festival of First Films
in Singapore in December 2008, the Special Prize at the International
Thessaloniki Film Festival, and an award at the Kara Film Festival in Pakistan.
It won two National Film Awards at 56th National Film Awards. The film was
banned in Gujarat owing to the communally sensitive subject of the film.
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14. Muttrupulliyaa (2009)
Muttrupulliyaa is a Sri Lankan film about four individuals
of Tamil descent living in Sri Lanka after the end of the Sri Lankan Civil War
in 2009. This is the first film from Sri Lanka to describe this period.
The story of Muttrupulliyaa is told through a former female
Tamil tiger rebel living in Jaffna with her three children and her husband
missing after he surrendered to the Sri Lankan army, a historian living in the Vanni; an
environmental activist from Colombo and a young journalist from Chennai who
travels to Sri Lanka.
The production team had to shoot undercover in Sri Lanka,
hiding their real identities because of the risks.. Despite these precautions,
some of the film team were arrested or forced into hiding. Muttrupulliyaa
premiered at the Jaffna film festival.
Muttrupulliyaa was allowed to be screened in Sri Lanka and
was approved by the Public Performance Board of Sri Lanka.Muttrupulliyaa was
banned in India by the censor board as it would damage Indo-Sri Lanka
relations. The ban was later lifted by the Film Certification Appellate
Tribunal. However, the filmmaker had to morph the Liberation Tigers of Tamil
Eelam flags, cut out photographs of its slain leaders and state that the film
was a work of fiction inspired by real events.
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15. Gandu (2010)
Gandu is a 2010 Indian erotic black-and-white art drama film
directed by Qaushiq Mukherjee. It features Anubrata Basu, Joyraj Bhattacharjee,
Kamalika Banerjee, Silajit Majumder, and Rii Sen in the lead roles. The film's
music is by the alternative rock band Five Little Indians. Gandu previewed at
Yale University before making its international premiere on 29 October 2010 at
the 2010 South Asian International Film Festival in New York City.Gandu was an
official selection at the 2011 Berlin International Film Festival and was also
screened at the Slamdance Film Festival.
Gandu has received mainly positive reviews from critics.
John Reis called it "a stunning visual and narrative feast" while
Variety said it is "a happily transgressive rhyme-fueled romp". Gandu
has caused some controversy because of language and scenes of nudity and sex.
Many audiences left during the sex scenes. Because of the controversy the film
did not have its first public screening in India until 2012 at the Osian Film
Festival. The main star Anubrata Basu is shown with his penis fully erect in a
sex scene with Rii Sen.
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16. Inshallah, football (2010)
Inshallah, Football is a documentary film by Ashvin Kumar
about an aspiring footballer who was denied the right to travel abroad on the
pretext that his father was a militant in the 1990s. The film was completed in
2010, and has faced difficulties getting released in India. The film's first
screening in India at the India Habitat Center received this review from
Tehelka magazine, 'Kumar's camera catches the irony of Kashmir's physical
beauty, the claustrophobia of militarisation, the dread and hopelessness of
children born into war and the nuances of relationships.
It also filters the inherent joie-de-vivre of youth, even if
that flows uneasily with Kashmir's collective memory of unmitigated
grief...There is no better way to understand Kashmir right now.'. The film was
shot by Kumar himself using five different camera formats "There is a
rough, almost unpolished, feel to Inshallah, Football. The narrative runs
unfettered, with an energy of its own." says Tehelka, "We shot with
five different cameras, from DSLRs to the best equipment. The idea was to watch
life unfold and get under the skin of the audience." adds Kumar
This film has face
considerable difficulties in getting the necessary censor certificate, without
which it cannot be shown publicly in India. The main stumbling block appears to
be the content of the film itself, since it deals with the sensitive and highly
political subject of how the Indian armed forces have conducted themselves in
Kashmir. The award of an "Adult" certificate for a documentary is
very unusual, since an Adult certificate is normally awarded to feature films
that include graphic violence and nudity. Such films can be shown only to
audiences over the age of 18, and most movie theaters in India will not
ordinarily agree to screen such films since it is very difficult to for them to
make money in the circumstances.
The explanation for awarding Inshallah, Football was that
the film has "characters talking about graphic details of physical and
mental torture they had to undergo. The theme of the film is mature and some
dialogues can be psychologically damaging for non-adult audience."
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17. Dazed in Doon (2010)
Dazed In Doon is a 2010 film written and directed by Ashvin
Kumar, who was invited by The Doon School (Kumar's alma mater) to create a
fictional film set in the school to mark the school's 75th Founder's Day in
2010. It has since become controversial as after the initial screening during
the occasion, the school authorities moved to suppress the distribution of the
film on the grounds that it "doesn't give the School a good name",
referring to the scenes of bullying depicted in the film. The film runs to 55
minutes and was made in just four months, from the start of pre-production on
20 June 2010 to the first screening on 23 October 2010.
An international crew contributed to the making of the film:
post-production was completed in Goa (editing), Italy (picture color
correction) and London (sound mixing) with Kumar simultaneously completing
post-production on Inshallah, Football.
The present controversy between Kumar and the School
authorities has the School complaining that the film does not conform with a
version alleged to have been shown to the Headmaster before its presentation at
the School, and Kumar asserting that the School should have asked for changes
at the time the script was being drafted in close consultation with the
School's representative, Ratna Pathak Shah, over a period of six months, since
January 2010. The script had been submitted and approved, and funding was
approved before shooting commenced.
As a consequence of this controversy, the School authorities
have obtained an injunction from the district court in Dehradun to stop the
film's release, and the dispute between director and School continues unabated.
The film was originally shown to about 3,000 people who
attended Doon's 75th Anniversary celebrations in October 2010, while it
received a standing ovation from some it also received an adverse reaction from
a segment of the alumni community, which appears to have resulted in the School
abruptly withdrawing the sale of the film's DVDs and banning any further
screening or even discussion of the film among the students.
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18. Mushrooms (2011)
Chatrak (English: Mushrooms) is a 2011 Indian Bengali erotic
drama film directed by Sri Lankan director Vimukthi Jayasundara. It was screened at several film festivals
worldwide, including the Directors' Fortnight at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival
and the Pacific Meridian film festival in Vladivostok, Russia.
It has not received a theatrical release.
A scene in Chatrak with explicit frontal nudity caused
uproar in India, especially in Kolkata, where the film was mainly shot. A version without the sexually explicit scene
was arranged to be shown in the 2011 Kolkata Film Festival.
Director Jayasundara admitted that there are several versions of Chatrak, and some do not contain the sex scene. He also admitted that he was surprised to witness negative feedback due to the inclusion of such sex scene in his film.
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19. Unfreedom (2014)
Unfreedom: Blemished light (Hindi title: Dagh Ujala) is a
2014 Indian drama film by Raj Amit Kumar which was released in North America on
29 May 2015.Faiz Ahmad Faiz's poem, "Ye Dagh Dagh Ujala", is the
inspiration behind the film.The film stars Victor Banerjee, Adil Hussain and
Preeti Gupta.
The story revolves around a Muslim fundamentalist in New
York who kidnaps a liberal Muslim scholar with an intent to kill, while a
closeted lesbian in New Delhi kidnaps her bisexual lover with the intent of
being together. Then the resulting torture and violence evokes a brutal
struggle of identities against "unfreedom".
In India, the film was refused certification by the
Examining Committee. A revising committee of the Censor Board proposed cuts to
the director, Raj Amit Kumar. He refused and appealed against the Censor
Board's demand for cuts to the Indian Government's Information and Broadcasting
Appellate Tribunal FCAT. In response to his appeal, the authorities completely
banned the film regardless of cuts. The
news of the ban gained widespread coverage in the media.
In a video released on April 9, 2015 on YouTube, Raj Amit
Kumar states that the Censor Board should rate or certify a movie, instead of
banning and offering cuts. He also said that he would keep sending signed
petitions to the Prime Minister and Censor Board, until there is a real change.
The director is seeking support from people who believe in freedom of speech.
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20. Chaayam Poosiya Veedu (2015)
The Painted House (Malayalam title: Chaayam Pooshiya Veedu)
is a 2015 Indian Malayalam-language independent drama film directed by brothers
Santosh and Satish Babusenan in their feature debut. The film stars Neha
Mahajan, Kaladharan Nair, and Akram Mohammed. The film was mainly made in
Malayalam and English, but it has official dubbed versions in Hindi and Tamil
as Rangeen Ghar and Vaanam Poosiya Veedu respectively.
The Babusenan brothers were formerly cinematographers and producers in Mumbai, working for MTV, Channel V, STAR and others. In 1998 they made a short film, Twilight Dream, which was selected to the Split Film Festival in Croatia and the Mumbai International Film Festival. The Painted House was made after a gap of seventeen years.
The Painted House was initially denied a CBFC certificate as
it contains three scenes where the female lead is shown naked. The Central
Board of Film Certification demanded that the three scenes be deleted, but the
directors refused to make any alterations or deletions to the film. As a result
the film was banned in India. The makers
challenged the CFBC decision in court and the High court cleared the film with
no cuts. The makers posted an announcement regarding the same on the film's
official Facebook page on 29 January 2016.
The uncut film is available for viewing on YouTube.
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21. Mohalla Assi (2015)
Mohalla Assi ( The
neighbourhood of Assi Ghat ) is a 2018 Indian Hindi-language satirical drama
film starring Sunny Deol and Sakshi Tanwar, and directed by Dr. Chandraprakash
Dwivedi.
The film is loosely based on Dr. Kashi Nath Singh's popular
Hindi novel Kashi Ka Assi, a satire on the commercialisation of the pilgrimage
city, and fake gurus who lure the foreign tourists. Assi Ghat is a ghat in
Varanasi (Banaras) on the banks of Ganges River, and the film is based in a
famous and historical 'Mohalla' (locality) by the ghat, on the southern end of
Banaras. Also starring Ravi Kishen and Sakshi Tanwar, the film is set in the
post-independence period.
Sunny Deol plays the lead role of Sanskrit teacher and an
orthodox religious priest (Pandit) while Sakshi Tanwar plays his wife. The
story of the film goes through the events in 1990 and 1989 including Ram
Janmabhoomi movement and Mandal Commission implementation.
On 30 June 2015, the release of Mohalla Assi was stayed by a
Delhi court for allegedly hurting religious sentiments. After several delays,
Mohalla Assi finally released on 16 November 2018.
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22. Angry Indian Goddesses (2015)
Angry Indian Goddesses is a 2015 Indian Hindi-language drama
film directed by Pan Nalin and produced by Gaurav Dhingra and Pan Nalin under
the banner Jungle Book Entertainment. It stars Sandhya Mridul, Tannishtha
Chatterjee, Sarah-Jane Dias, Anushka Manchanda, Amrit Maghera, Rajshri
Deshpande, and Pavleen Gujral with Adil Hussain. It was screened in the Special
Presentations section of the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival, where it
finished second for the People's Choice Award.
The film was released in two versions: an international
version, and an Indian version. The international version which was screened at
the Toronto International Film Festival is not censored and does not have an
interval, unlike the Indian version. The title sequence was asked to be
censored and blurred in its entirety by the Central Board of Film Certification
(CBFC) for its Indian release.
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23. Loev (2015)
Loev (pronounced love) is a 2015 Indian romantic drama film
written and directed by Sudhanshu Saria. It stars Dhruv Ganesh and Shiv Panditt
as two friends who set off to the Western Ghats for a weekend trip and focuses
on their complex emotional and sexual relationship. It was Ganesh's final film,
as he died from tuberculosis before its release. Loev also features Siddharth
Menon and Rishabh Chaddha in supporting roles. The film's title is a deliberate
misspelling of the word "love".
Loev had its world premiere at the 2015 Tallinn Black Nights
Film Festival in Estonia. It had its North American premiere at the 2016 South
By Southwest Film Festival and premiered in India at the 2016 Mumbai
International Film Festival. It was released on Netflix on 1 May 2017. The film
was well received by critics and audiences during its international premieres
at film festivals. The film won the Audience Award for Best Feature Film at the
2016 Tel Aviv International Film Festival.
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24. Fifty Shades of Grey (2015)
Fifty Shades of Grey is a 2015 American erotic romantic
drama film directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson from a screenplay by Kelly Marcel.
The film is based on E. L. James' 2011 novel of the same name and stars Dakota
Johnson, Jamie Dornan, Jennifer Ehle and Marcia Gay Harden. It is the first
installment in the Fifty Shades film series. The story follows Anastasia
"Ana" Steele (Johnson), a college graduate, who begins a
sadomasochistic relationship with young business magnate Christian Grey
(Dornan).
Fifty Shades of Grey premiered at the 69th Berlin
International Film Festival on February 11, 2015, and was released on February
13, 2015, in IMAX formats. Despite receiving generally negative reviews, it was
an immediate box office success, breaking numerous box office records and
earning $569 million worldwide against a budget of $40 million. The soundtrack
album was also successful;
The film was scheduled for a February 12, 2015, release in Malaysia, but it was denied a certificate by the Malaysian Film Censorship Board (LPF) for its "unnatural" and "sadistic" content.
The LPF chairman, Abdul Halim Abdul Hamid, said Fifty Shades
was "more pornography than a movie." The film was also banned in
Indonesia, Kenya, Russia's North Caucasus, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Papua New Guinea, Cambodia, and India.
The film was released in Nigeria for a week, before being removed from
cinemas by the National Film and Video Censors Board (NFVCB). Studios decided against pursuing a theatrical
release in China.
The sex scenes were censored after protests from various
religious groups in the Philippines, and as a result it is in limited release
in that country with an R-18 rating from the MTRCB. A similarly cut version was
released in Zimbabwe.
Roughly 20 minutes were cut from the film for screening in
Vietnam, leaving no sex scenes. The scene in which Ana is beaten with a belt is
skipped entirely.
Fifty Shades of Grey grossed $166.2 million in the United
States and Canada and $403.5 million in other countries, for a worldwide total
of $569.7 million, against a budget of $40 million.It became the third
highest-grossing film directed by a woman at the time of release (behind Mamma
Mia! and Kung Fu Panda 2), and at the
time of the end of its theatrical run
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25. Lipstick Under My Burkha (2016)
Lipstick Under My Burkha is a 2016 Indian Hindi-language
black comedy film written and directed by Alankrita Shrivastava and produced by
Prakash Jha
The movie shows the secret lives of four women who are in
search of their freedom. Even after facing all the odds and obstacles in their
way, they still manage to find their way to claim their desires through small
acts of courage.
The first trailer was released on 14 October 2016. The film
was initially denied a release in India in January 2017, after the country's
Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) refused a certificate, stating that
"There are contagious [sic] sexual scenes, abusive words, audio
pornography and a bit sensitive touch about one particular section of
society". The film premiered at the Tokyo and Mumbai Film Festivals, where
it won the Spirit of Asia Prize and the Oxfam Award for Best Film on Gender
Equality. The film received two nominations at the 63rd Filmfare Awards,
including Best Film (Critics) and Best Supporting Actress for Ratna Pathak. It
won multiple awards Ottawa Indian Film Festival, London Asian Film Festival,
Tokyo International film festival, Mumbai Film Festival and New York Indian
Film Festival.
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26. No Fire Zone (2014)
No Fire Zone: In the Killing Fields of Sri Lanka is an
investigative documentary about the final weeks of the Sri Lankan Civil War.
The documentary covers the period from September 2008 until the end of the war
in 2009 in which thousands of Tamil people were killed by shelling and
extrajudicial executions by the Sri Lankan Army including Balachandran
Prabhakaran, the 12-year-old son of the slain Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
(LTTE) Chief Velupillai Prabhakaran.
The Sri Lankan army has denied the allegations in the
documentary. However, on 21 October 2015 the BBC reported that Maxwell
Paranagama, a government-appointed Sri Lankan judge, says allegations the army
committed war crimes during the long conflict with Tamil Tiger rebels are
"credible". He went on to say there was evidence to suggest that
footage obtained by the Channel 4 documentary No Fire Zone - showing prisoners
naked, blindfolded, with arms tied and shot dead by soldiers - was genuine
In March 2013, the documentary was screened by its director,
Callum Macrae, at the 22nd session of the United Nations Human Rights Council
in Geneva.
The film was not released in theatres in India as Central
Board of Film Certification did not approve it. In response to this attempt at
censorship No fire Zone was released online for free in India and Malaysia as
well as Sri Lanka and Nepal.
In November 2014 the Musician M.I.A described No Fire Zone
as “the only film that gives me faith in journalism. It's not only the most
important account of what happened to the Tamils, it's actually become part of
the fabric of their history.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
27. Porkalathil Oru Poo (2015)
Porkalathil Oru Poo (transl. Flower
on the Battleground) is an unreleased Indian Tamil-language film directed by K
Ganeshan. It is based on the life of Isaipriya also known as "Lieutenant
Colonel Issei Piriya", a journalist and television broadcaster for the
rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. It was planned to be released in 2015
but was banned by the Censor Board as it would damage India–Sri Lanka relations.
The filmmakers have said they plan to challenge the ban.
On 8 October 2016, Justice T. S. Sivagnanam of the Madras High Court upheld the decision of the Film Certificate Appellate Tribunal's denial for certification of the film. He added that Isaipriya's mother and sister also opposed the release of the movie, fearing that it may affect their current life. The music for the film is composed by Ilaiyaraaja.
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28. Dharam Yudh Morcha (2016)
Dharam Yudh Morcha is a 2016 Indian Punjabi-language
semidocumentary film directed by Naresh S. Garg about the Dharam Yudh Morcha a
Sikh movement in the Indian state of Punjab, chronicling the history of Punjab
from 1947 to 1984 including the Punjabi Suba movement (to create a province for
Punjabi speakers), the Anandpur Sahib Resolution and the insurgency in Punjab.
It is based on two-hundred plus eyewitness accounts and
official documents with the information gathering and research for the film
taking almost three years to compile and execute into a story and screenplay
which was finished in July 2015. The film was banned in India.
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29. Toofan Singh (2017)
Toofan Singh is a 2017 Indian Punjabi-language biographical
drama film directed by Baghal Singh and starring Ranjit Bawa as the Sikh
militant Toofan Singh.
Though the Indian Central Board of Film Certification
refused to certify and banned the film in 2016, it was released internationally
in 2017
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30. Neelam (2017)
Neelam (transl. Blue)
is an unreleased Indian Tamil-language drama film directed by Venkatesh Kumar.
It is a Tamil film based in the context of the Sri Lankan Civil War and the
rise of Tamil rebel groups including the Tamil Tigers. The film was refused
clearance and banned by the Censor board of India as it on the grounds it would
damage ties with Sri Lanka. The film features the song 'Alayae o Alayae' by M.
S. Viswanathan which was his last song before his demise.
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