Sources from the Information & Broadcasting Ministry say Nude is ‘technically incomplete’ and S Durga ‘hurts religious sentiments’
Dean Lobo and Mihir Bhanage (BOMBAY TIMES; November 16, 2017)

'Kapda jism pe pehenaya jaata hai, rooh pe nahi. Aur main apne kaam mein, rooh khojne ki koshish karta hoon. Samajh mein aaya?’ (Clothes are meant to cover the body, not the soul. And I, through my art, attempt to seek the soul. Do you understand?) These are the closing lines delivered by Naseeruddin Shah from the teaser of director Ravi Jadhav’s Marathi film, Nude. The teaser was put up on social media on Tuesday, after the movie was dropped from the list of films to be screened in the Indian Panaroma category at the upcoming 48th International Film Festival of India (IFFI), Goa. Besides this, Sanal Kumar Sasidharan’s Malayalam film S Durga (originally Sexy Durga) has also been dropped by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, just days before the festival commences (November 20).

A look at Nude’s teaser will suggest that there’s nothing vulgar or objectionable about its content. “Sachin Kundalkar, the writer of Nude, and I worked on this film for two years, and we were clear from the start that we were not looking to initiate a controversy of any kind,” Ravi clarified in a television interview on Tuesday. The filmmaker is of the opinion that the Ministry of I&B might not have even watched the film and has come to a conclusion just on the basis of the film’s title.”

Why ‘nude’ and ‘sexy’ don’t qualify
This said, there seems to be a new turn of events in the matter. Sources inform that Nude was denied a screening because it was ‘technically incomplete’. “The uncensored version of Nude was submitted, wherein post-production work was observed to be incomplete,” adds a source from the Ministry of I&B. With regards to S Durga, sources from the Ministry suggest that it might’ve been dropped due to “concerns over law and order situations” arising owing to its title, which has the name of a Hindu Goddess in it.

With regards to his film, Ravi continues to be of the opinion that this is not the right way to go about functioning. “The usual practice is that the festival entry form is filled four to five months in advance. We hear from them a month prior to the festival and are asked if we can submit the film files for viewing. Only if there’s a positive response from the entrant, is it confirmed that the movie is in the festival.”

Ravi added that the film screener submitted usually contains 95 per cent of the film experience; the jury cannot judge a half-done movie. Nude was ready in September itself. “This time, none of this happened. In fact, we were waiting for when the decision would come. It seems like all this has been done in a hurry just 10 days prior to the festival, and this is unfortunate,” Ravi added.

In the case of S Durga, a lot of grievances were allegedly received by the Ministry of I&B with regards to the film’s title hurting religious sentiments, which is why it was refused a screening at MAMI (Mumbai Film Festival). Sources inform that the Ministry decided to follow the same ‘uniform benchmark’ for IFFI so as to avoid any untoward incidents. “The same was also conveyed to the festival director,” sources added.