The Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) has demanded the makers of the film JSK - Janaki Vs State of Kerala, starring Union Minister Suresh Gopi, to change the title of the film. Filmmaker Pravin Narayanan told The Hindu on Sunday that the board’s stand had effectively stalled the release of the film scheduled for June 27. When asked about the issue, regional officials of the CBFC were evasive and said that the “certification process is ongoing.”
According to Mr. Narayanan, the Thiruvananthapuram regional office of the CBFC had cleared the censoring of the film on June 18 with a U/A certificate. However, when the regional office forwarded the same to the CBFC headquarters in Mumbai, the higher officials there demanded a change in the title as well as the name of the titular character of Janaki, apparently because the name also refers to the Hindu goddess Sita.
“We were supposed to load the content with the censor certificate attached on June 20 for distribution to release centres across the world. But on that evening, the CBFC officials told the producer that the film won’t be certified unless the film and character names are changed. We told them to give us a written document denoting this, so that we can proceed to the review committee. The officials have told us that they will provide this on Monday. We have already spent a lot on publicity events and marketing. The online ticketing process was also about to begin,” said Mr. Narayanan.
