New Delhi: Malayalam film S Durga lost the battle of wits for its screening at the International Film Festival of India with the Central Board of Film Certification withdrawing its certification on a technicality on Tuesday, the festival's last day.
This means the film, cleared twice by Kerala High Court and twice by the festival jury - whose latest approval came on Monday night - cannot be screened anywhere in India till the board re-examines it.
The objection was that instead of renaming the film from Sexy Durga to S Durga, the filmmakers had blurred out the last three letters of " Sexy" with hashtags ("S### Durga").
This has "totally different implications and are effectively undermining and attempting to defeat the very basis of the title registration and changes effected thereby", the board's regional officer in Thiruvananthapuram said in a communication to the film's producer.
The officer claimed that the way the film's title was projected in the print shown to the festival jury on Monday night was different from the version verified by the board's cut verification committee.
However, the film's maker, S.K. Sasidharan, told The Telegraph that the copy of the film he had handed over to festival director Sunit Tandon on Saturday was the one cleared by the committee.
"I will challenge this CBFC order and file a case of contempt-of-court against the festival directorate and the (I&B) ministry as they delayed the jury screening till the penultimate night of the festival so that I was left with no time to seek a review of the government's decision," he said.
After the high court ordered the festival to show the film to the jury, the link of the film was emailed to Tandon on Friday night and a physical copy handed over to him the following night. But the screening took place some 48 hours later.
The jury cleared the film with seven of the 11 members who watched it voting in its favour. This was communicated to the ministry and all morning the filmmakers waited for a screening in anticipation. But, in the end, the government had its way.
