Central Board of Film Certification’s (CBFC) censorship plays a major role in movies making it to theaters. Zoya Akhtar and Lyricist Javed Akhtar recently attended an event in Mumbai. During the interaction, the filmmaker who directed The Archies opened up about the censorship of films. She highlighted the lack of censorship of OTT content and whether this is a limitation or liberation to filmmakers. She questioned the justification for approving physical intimacy and women being sexually assaulted but not a kiss on big screens.

Zoya Akhtar said, “It is very important to showcase consensual intimacy on screen. I grew up at a time where women were bullied, beaten up, harassed and sexually assaulted on screen. All these were allowed, but you couldn’t see a kiss. People should be allowed to see love, tenderness, physical intimacy between two adults. Every film has a tone, and every filmmaker tells a story in a particular way. As opposed to Ramesh Sippy’s Sholay, where the choices of showcasing violence were ahead of its time, the violence in Tarantino’s films are operatic. It is all about what you are trying to evoke in the audience.” 

Zoya Akhtar further spoke about the artistic freedom that changes according to regions supporting her statement with an example as the French are more open with male nudity compared to Americans. She also emphasized that every content is a cultural thing and depends on how it is perceived or how a person is comfortable. She added,  I wouldn’t do in Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara what I did in Lust stories. The audience doesn’t make a big deal of it because the intentions were clear.”

Her father Javed Akhtar added to her remark, “If you are showing a love scene to titillate, that is different. If you want to evoke some genuine romance, and empathetic emotions, then it is different. Even in my worst anger, I don’t use four-letter cuss words. But when I saw it being uttered on screen in Bandit Queen, I didn’t mind them because the intention wasn’t to shock or titillate you. Many films say they are depicting the lived realities of sections of the society and use these words. However, it is clear that except the language, nothing reflects their lived reality. Now, that is crude. Intention is very important.”