New Delhi, Aug. 1: Hopes that a change in government would ease censorship rules and other curbs on directors submitting entries at film festivals have been belied.

Earlier this week, the Centre said video and digital films could be entered at film festivals and would be considered for national awards. However, it did not lift the antiquated regulation that documentaries entered in Indian film festivals must have prior censor clearance. Foreign entries do not require clearance.

“This half-victory has confused many filmmakers,” documentary maker Sanjay Kak said. “We will meet in a couple of days and decide whether we should refuse to enter our films for the national awards under these conditions. The government has yielded on the technological aspect while standing firm on the core issue of censorship and the director’s freedom of expression,” he added.

Filmmakers met information and broadcasting minister Jaipal Reddy earlier this week, with director Rahul Roy saying: “He (Reddy) was sympathetic to our demands and said he did not personally believe in censorship, but he had to convene a committee to look into the entire issue.”

Kak admits there is no easy solution to the censorship issue and says different opinions are bound to be aired on the matter. For instance, Films for Freedom — a loose association of documentary makers — merely wants censorship for documentaries entered in Indian film festivals and for national awards scrapped.

“If the national awards is to recognise excellence it cannot keep off controversial political themes. It goes against democratic traditions of the country. It is time we learnt to respect non-conformist opinions,” Kak said.

In recent years, the National Democratic Alliance government wielded the censorship clause to stop documentaries on the Gujarat riots like Rakesh Sharma’s Final Solution from being aired.

Films on other sensitive political issues including developmental films that go against the establishment, like documentaries on the Narmada project, have also run into problems with the censors.

Roy’s The City Beautiful, which shows how two families have been affected by globalisation, is also facing trouble. “The fact is that most of the documentary makers are anti-establishment and the government in power, of whatever political shade, is never comfortable with them,” the director says.

Documentary makers had not been refused censor certificates until now because their films never dealt with sensitive issues that threatened the establishment.

Many filmmakers who did not get censor clearance had aired their documentaries when they wished to.

But things have changed in the last 10-odd years. There has been an explosion of documentary makers, with video and digital films coming into their own as technology became cheaper and readily available. Editing studios were no longer required for editing could be done on computers.

Nearly 50-60 documentary films are made now on a host of topics; only those that upset the establishment face problems.

Sharma’s Final Solution has picked up awards abroad but has run into trouble whenever it has been aired in India.

The film is set to become the first Indian documentary to get a full-fledged commercial release, within the country or abroad, when it is shown at theatres in Germany around September-October.

But it was not allowed an airing at the recent Mumbai International Film Festival, prompting documentary makers to walk away and hold a parallel festival, Vikalp.

Final Solution, which is part of a package of documentaries currently being shown in Bangalore, could not be screened last Thursday. Vishwa Hindu Parishad workers protested against the film’s screening, saying it did not have censor certification.

Activists of Films for Freedom, which is touring several cities with the uncensored documentaries, believe members of the regional censor board in Bangalore had tipped off the VHP. Final Solution could not be aired but other documentaries were screened.

Films for Freedom is taking the documentaries across the country, including Gujarat.