October 05, 2004

Indian censors to suppress 'Fahrenheit 9/11'Film

Anjali from over at to the teeth has utilized the Sepia Mutiny Tip Line and alerted the Mutineers to some interesting information out of India (you can read her take on the site). As reported at CommonDreams.org:

Film activists in the Indian capital have strongly protested the country’s censors holding up release of the award-winning documentary “Fahrenheit 9/11”.

“Fahrenheit 9/11”, vehemently anti-US President George W. Bush, won the Palme Ór best film award at Cannes this year. It can be downloaded off the Net and its pirated copies are available across the country.

“The censor board takes these senseless decisions because as a body it is irrelevant and completely behind times,” said Shuddhabrata Sengupta at Sarai, the media and research foundation.

“The censor board itself should be done away with,” Sengupta, a researcher on issues of censorship, told IANS.

The Michael Moore film, which has become a pillar of the Democratic presidential campaign, was supposed to be released in Mumbai, New Delhi, Kolkata and Pune on Oct 15.

But what in the movie could possibly offend Indian censors? India isn’t part of the coalition of the bribed an coerced that Moore makes fun of in the movie. Then what?

Several reasons are being offered on why the censors are worried about the film. One of them is to avoid offending the American authorities.

We wouldn’t want that. I for one think that the censors are simply trying to suppress the film because they found out from the Detroit Free Press that Moore is a criminal.

abhi on October 5, 2004 07:48 PM in Film · T·r·a·c·k·b·a·c·k address · Direct link · Email post