The anticipated face-off between the Central Board Of Film Certification (CBFC) and its former chairperson Pahlaj Nihalani has been diffused.
When Nihalani, as Julie 2’s presenter and distributor, decided to approach the CBFC to certify his film, the irony was obvious. The trailer of his film showed that Julie 2 had titbits of everything that the former self-styled sanskaari CBFC chief was censoring while he was on the hot seat.
However, news is in that Julie 2 has been cleared by the CBFC with an ‘Adults’ certificate with absolutely no cuts, making Nihalani a very happy man.
This is just what I had hoped for. If I was still the CBFC chairperson, I’d have given Julie 2 an ‘Adults’ certificate with no cuts. It is a clean Adults film for adult members of a family. Though it’s a film on an adult subject - the exploitation of strugglers and newcomers in Bollywood - the film has no nudity , no skin show , no double-meaning dialogues. Like I said it is a family film for adults and the CBFC has done the right thing.Pahlaj Nihalani
About charges of hypocrisy being levelled at him for peddling soft porn after espousing puritanism as the CBFC chairperson, Nihalani protests, “Soft porn or soft corn, or harsh reality. Let the film release. The world will know.”
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