Malayalam film Private, directed by Deepak Deon, has been selected for screening at the ongoing 48th edition of the Moscow International Film Festival. The film, starring Indrans and Meenakshi Anoop, has been chosen in the non-competition category. The first screening was on April 18, with the second scheduled for Monday (April 20).
The film was also recently screened at the P.K. Rosy Film Festival organised by filmmaker Pa Ranjith under the banner of Neelam Cultural Centre.
Private was released in theatres in October after overcoming censoring issues. Mr. Deon said that the film was allowed to be released only after making multiple cuts.
“The regional office of the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) denied it certification initially as they thought it was an ‘anti-national film’, although I made it as an anti-fascist film. The CBFC head office agreed to give it an ‘A’ certificate provided I made several cuts, although there was no nudity or violence in the film. Finally, after several rounds of talks, they agreed to give me a ‘U/A’ certification with some cuts,” he said.
One of the things the filmmaker had to remove was a tribute in his own words to rationalists Narendra Dabholkar, M.M. Kalburgi, Govind Pansare and Gauri Lankesh, who were all murdered by religious extremists. This had to be replaced with a collage of paper cuttings about them. Dialogues related to the Citizenship Amendment Bill and other political issues were also removed.
