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I&B Ministry does away with censorship for MIFF

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI SEPT. 18. Two days after 175 documentary filmmakers of the country decided to boycott next year's Mumbai International Film Festival (MIFF) to protest the censorship of Indian entries at the festival, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry today announced that Indian films would not need a certificate from the Central Board of Film Certification to participate in the festival.

This was announced here by the Union Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting, Ravi Shankar Prasad, who said the decision had been taken to ensure that Indian filmmakers were not placed at a disadvantage at the festival.

As a consequence, the Ministry has asked the organisers of MIFF — Films Division — to extend the date for entering films for the festival as the earlier deadline expired on August 31.

Mr. Prasad said the decision had been taken earlier and the documentary filmmakers had acted in haste by calling the boycott. But, on Wednesday, in the wake of reports of the boycott call, the Ministry had decided that the I&B Secretary, Pawan Chopra, and the Joint Secretary (Films), Anjali Chibb Duggal, would go to Mumbai early next week to talk to the documentary filmmakers and Films Division to try and break the deadlock.

Earlier this year, Films Division had mandated that Indian films for the biennial MIFF would need a certificate from CBFC for entering the festival while no such clause was applicable to foreign entries.

Films Division and the Ministry had made the plea that such certification was mandated only to establish the date of completion of the film, and was not an attempt to censor.

However, since this clause of the Cinematograph Act had never been invoked in MIFF's 13-year-long existence, documentary filmmakers saw in this move an attempt to screen all Indian entries, particularly in view of the fact that the 2004 edition of this festival was the first to be organised after the Gujarat carnage.

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