Madhur Bhandarkar: Will NOT Show Indu Sarkar To Anybody Before CBFC Watches It

Just a couple of days back, Maharashtra Congress Chief Sanjay Nirupam had penned a letter to Censor Board chief Pahlaj Nihalani, expressing his desire to watch the film before it is screened for the CBFC. Nirupam had written, “The trailer of the film says it’s a film on Emergency and hence, we can see the likes of our beloved leaders like Indira Gandhi ji, Sanjay Gandhi ji and other senior leaders of the India National Congress. We, therefore, want to be certain that our leaders are not shown in bad light and hence, would like to see the film before it’s censored.”

However, director Madhur Bhandarkar is in no mood to screen the film for anybody except the CBFC. In an exclusive interview with Koimoi, the filmmaker said, “There is no question of showing the film. It has to be seen by the censor board because there is an authority, the CBFC is authorised by the government of India. They will see the film. Let them decide it. Why would I show some political party? Tomorrow somebody will allege that she is Sanjay Gandhi’s daughter and send me a legal notice saying she wants to see the film. Mr Tytler wants his image to be shown clean in the film. So where do I stop? There is no end to it. Tomorrow somebody else will come and tell me to show me the film, this is completely absurd. Why do we have the censor board then? I personally feel that unreasonable demands are being made to show the film, which I am not going to show anybody until and unless it gets passed by the censor board. By anybody, I mean political parties.”

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Taking a dig at political parties without taking names, Bhandarkar said, “The film is about women empowerment, about a girl who stammers, about a poetess who rebels against the system. If political parties talk about women empowerment then they should support the film. You are suppressing a film, you are strangulating a film, which has a female point of view.”

He also reacted to Congress calling the film ‘sponsored by the BJP government’. Giving a befitting reply to the allegation, the filmmaker said, “It’s an absolutely weird and reckless remark. I am a filmmaker who has been making films for the last 17 years. It’s a budgeted film. If it was a sponsored thing then I could have made a docu-drama on Emergency or a biopic. Why would I make a film which is 30 percent reality and 70 percent fiction? If it was sponsored then I would have released it before the elections 3 months back or I would have waited for the 2019 elections. Who would stop me? No political party can dictate me saying do this do that. I will make what I want to make.”

Indu Sarkar, starring Kirti Kulhari, Neil Nitin Mukesh, Supriya Vinod, Anupam Kher and Tota Roy Chowdhury in key roles, hit theatres on 28^th July.