An Andhra Pradesh High Court judge has directed the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) to state its stand regarding stalling the release of Ekta Kapoor's The Dirty Picture.
The film is about Silk Smitha, an actress who became popular for playing sleazy roles, and who allegedly committed suicide a few years ago.
The film makers have been served notices by the court for a case to be heard this Wednesday.
The petitioner, Vadlapatla Naga Vara Prasad, said he is the brother of the deceased actress and charged the filmmakers with filling the film with unrealistic and obscene scenes rather than trying to portray the true picture. He said that none of the
filmmakers had talked to him. Prasad contented that her private life was different to that portayed.
Although the petitioner claimed that he had served a notice on the censor board asking it to not certify the film at all, counsel for the censor board, told the court that they had not received any such notice.
Update: Uncut A
22nd November 2011. See article
from apunkachoice.com
The Dirty Picture has now received an adults-only uncut A certificate from the Censor Board.
Update: At the BBFC
3rd December 2011. See article
from bbfc.co.uk
The UK film censors at the BBFC passed The Dirty Picture 15 uncut for moderate sex and sex references
Update: Day in Court
3rd December 2011. See article
from timesofindia.indiatimes.com
Justice Vilas Afzalpurkar of the High Court reserved his decision on a petition that wanted the release of the film, Dirty Picture, to be stayed
The judge heard the petition from Vadlapatla Naga Vara Prasada Rao, brother of Silk Smitha, the Telugu actress who committed suicide a few years ago. Rao contended that the film was made based on the life of his sister without obtaining the consent of
her family. He also charged the filmmakers with making the film with unrealistic and obscene shots.
Later the Andhra court ruled against Rao permitting the film to be released in the original version of the film without any edits.
Update: Banned in Pakistan
3rd December 2011. See article
from zimbio.com
The censor board of Pakistan has banned The Dirty Picture from being screened in their country . The reason behind this is not clear yet .
Background: Sexy Theatres
4th December 2011. See article
from news.asiaone.com
It's shortly after 9:00 am in Mumbai's red light district and about 100 men are jostling at the box office window of the New Roshan Talkies cinema to buy tickets for 15 rupees each for a so-called morning show .
Indian cinema's sub-culture of titillating morning shows , which are often seen as soft pornography but are mostly no more explicit than an average Hollywood film, have attracted a lot of mainstream interest in recent weeks.
These theatres are called sexy theatres where we show these morning shows for a certain class of audience, said Raju Singh, manager of the Silver Cinema on nearby Grant Road. In the days before the Internet and cheap blackmarket X-rated DVDs,
erotic films were hugely popular in the area, he said. So-called English movies - an illicit montage of censor's cuts - were also shown during intervals at the travelling cinemas that tour the Indian countryside, bringing films to the rural
population.
Now the government and censors are very strict, Singh told AFP. They want to see every film that we screen and they do come for surprise checks. So, we don't show them any more. As a result, audiences for morning shows are dwindling,
adding to the decline of single-screen cinemas in the face of competition from new, glitzy multiplexes run by big film studios, bootleg DVDs and cable television.
The interest in the decline of sexy theatres comes ahead of Friday's release of a new Bollywood film, The Dirty Picture , inspired by the actress Silk Smitha, who was a favourite among the erotic movie-going crowd in the 1980s. Her sexually
suggestive outfits, dancing and brazen attitude shocked straight-laced audiences used to Hindi-language Bollywood's traditional portrayal of chaste, romantic love.
Update: Indecent Poster
30th December 2011. See article
from khaleejtimes.com
Actress Vidya Balan has got a reprieve with the Andhra Pradesh High Court granting interim stay on a city court's order directing the police to investigate charges of obscenity and vulgarity relating to the film posters for The dirty Picture .
The petition, filed by the actress and the film's producer Ekta Kapoor, seeks to quash the criminal case filed by the police. The proceedings turned lively with the judge's remarks on the case while hearing the arguments of the counsels of the petitioner
and respondents. There is no photo (poster) before me to judge whether it is indecent or not. To see a film which has been given an 'A' certificate, there is an age limit of 18 years, but there is no age limit to see a poster, the judge observed.
Petitioner's counsel contended that the registration of a First Information Report (FIR) against Vidya Balan was an abuse of process of law. The allegations made in respect of the film would not attract the sections of law referred to and would result in
unnecessary harassment of the petitioner, he noted.
The public prosecutor, however, contended that the actress was liable for punishment under Section 292 and 294 of the IPC with Section 3, 4 and 6 of the Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act, 1986.
