Bangalore, March 29: The producer of a Kannada film that uses unsophisticated village lingo has taken the censors to court for snipping scenes and muting audio, some of which were allowed in the trailer.

In a writ petition filed before Karnataka High Court, M.S. Ravindra said the cuts violated the right to creative freedom guaranteed under the Cinematograph Act, hence the scenes should be restored.

The recently released film, Kiragoorina Gayyaligalu (Cantankerous women of Kiragooru village), is the screen adaptation of an acclaimed Kannada short story by the late Purnachandra Tejaswi.

The Karnataka unit of the Central Board of Film Certification, however, did not appreciate the rustic, and often crude, language used in the script. Besides snipping five sequences and muting over 20 words, it gave the film U/A certification that calls for parental discretion for viewers below 12 years.

"The same CBFC that gave a U certificate for the trailer allowed only a U/A certificate for the film," Ravindra said today.

"We had to accept the certification without going for a review since theatres were already booked for the (March 11) release. Otherwise, it would have created a lot more problems for us since a review takes several months."

The petition has been filed under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution that gives the high court overriding powers in such matters. It has also sought the court's directions to bring TV serials, which do not have pre-screening censorship, under the Cinematograph Act.

The film, directed by Suman Kittur, narrates the story of village women who unite to tame their husbands who have a feudal mindset and get away with their misdemeanours.

"The film has retained the essence of the short story that is about village people who speak adu bashe (village Kannada)," said Ravindra.

But the lingo did not go down well with the censors who ordered several cuts, including a scene in which a man calls his wife mooru kaasina hengasaru --- a woman worth three rupees. Another cut is a sequence in which four-year-old boys run naked towards the camera.

" Adu bashe can be a bit crude. But that's the way villagers talk. Just imagine if we use polished Kannada in such a sequence," said Ravindra.

"This is happening in a country where commercial films are not complete without item numbers shot from low angles," he said, alluding to sexually explicit sequences.

Agni Sridhar, who wrote the screenplay, termed the cuts "very bad for creative freedom".

"They clear films with mindless violence and vulgarity.... But they ordered us to cut five major scenes and several dialogues, although the script was in sync with... the culture so unique to our villages," he said.

Sa Ra Govind, the president of the Karnataka Film Chamber of Commerce, said his objection was that scenes allowed in the promo were snipped later. "If they were fit for the trailer, they should be fit for the movie as well."

But he had no issues that some unsuitable words had been muted. "There is no rule that lines picked from a book must be allowed in a film."

Muralidhar, a film buff, said: "The cuts and mutes have killed the original flavour. Imagine watching a Quentin Tarantino film with all the expletives muted. That's how I felt."

The regional head of the CBFC could not be contacted.