Bollywood's Bond banned by Pakistan's film censors
An Indian film about a suave James Bond-style secret agent who thwarts a Pakistani secret services' bid to detonate a nuclear bomb in Delhi has been banned by censors in Islamabad।
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Nevertheless Agent Vinod, which grossed $9.7m on its opening weekend in India, features a storyline in which the Pakistani ISI agency is seen colluding with the Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist group. In real life, Pakistani secret services have been criticised for apparently failing to spot that al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden was living in a compound in the garrison city of Abbottabad in the north of the country for several years. Lashkar-e-Taiba has been blamed for the 2008 Mumbai attacks which left 166 people dead in November 2008 and grounded peace talks between India and Pakistan for more than three years. The two countries have gone to war three times since independence from Britain in 1947 and came to the brink of nuclear conflict in 2002.
Censorship and Indian Cinema - The Case of War and Peace
The controversy around the denial of the censor certificate to Anand Patwardhan's film War and Peace (Jang aur Aman) — the filmmaker was asked to make 21 cuts — raises certain questions। Why is the State interested in censoring what we see? What is it that it thinks is dangerous for whom and why? Is it a stray case of Board members taking decisions callously, or is it part of a well-thought-out strategy by which the Censor Board typically functions? Is its existence stifling progressive cinema and freedom of expression? Are we losing more than what we are gaining on account of censorship?
On one side we find the State promoting reactionary films like Gadar (Turmoil), which deals with the India Pakistan Partition of 1947, or Border, a film about the Indo-Pak war that incites audiences enough to shout slogans of "Pakistan Murdabad" ("Down with Pakistan!"). The State passes Satya (The Truth), which shows indiscriminate killing of "gangsters" at the hands of police and even makes such films tax free, but it does not allow Patwardhan's films to be screened. The fact is that War and Peace is critical of India's nuclear bomb, which has been projected by the State as a major national achievement, while those other films endorse the State's point of view. It is a clear case of the Censor Board acting as an institution of the State to direct the public discourse and to safeguard its interests.
War and Peace by Anand Patwardhan
Filmed over three tumultuous years in India, Pakistan, Japan and the USA following nuclear tests in the Indian sub-continent War and Peace is a documentary journey of peace activism in the face of global militarism and war.
TV debate on 'War and Peace'
A debate on 'War and Peace' that followed its telecast on Aaj TV, Pakistan. For more on the film see http://patwardhan.com/index.shtml
An Indian film about a suave James Bond-style secret agent who thwarts a Pakistani secret services' bid to detonate a nuclear bomb in Delhi has been banned by censors in Islamabad।
[ ... ]
Nevertheless Agent Vinod, which grossed $9.7m on its opening weekend in India, features a storyline in which the Pakistani ISI agency is seen colluding with the Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist group. In real life, Pakistani secret services have been criticised for apparently failing to spot that al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden was living in a compound in the garrison city of Abbottabad in the north of the country for several years. Lashkar-e-Taiba has been blamed for the 2008 Mumbai attacks which left 166 people dead in November 2008 and grounded peace talks between India and Pakistan for more than three years. The two countries have gone to war three times since independence from Britain in 1947 and came to the brink of nuclear conflict in 2002.
Censorship and Indian Cinema - The Case of War and Peace
The controversy around the denial of the censor certificate to Anand Patwardhan's film War and Peace (Jang aur Aman) — the filmmaker was asked to make 21 cuts — raises certain questions। Why is the State interested in censoring what we see? What is it that it thinks is dangerous for whom and why? Is it a stray case of Board members taking decisions callously, or is it part of a well-thought-out strategy by which the Censor Board typically functions? Is its existence stifling progressive cinema and freedom of expression? Are we losing more than what we are gaining on account of censorship?
On one side we find the State promoting reactionary films like Gadar (Turmoil), which deals with the India Pakistan Partition of 1947, or Border, a film about the Indo-Pak war that incites audiences enough to shout slogans of "Pakistan Murdabad" ("Down with Pakistan!"). The State passes Satya (The Truth), which shows indiscriminate killing of "gangsters" at the hands of police and even makes such films tax free, but it does not allow Patwardhan's films to be screened. The fact is that War and Peace is critical of India's nuclear bomb, which has been projected by the State as a major national achievement, while those other films endorse the State's point of view. It is a clear case of the Censor Board acting as an institution of the State to direct the public discourse and to safeguard its interests.
War and Peace by Anand Patwardhan
Filmed over three tumultuous years in India, Pakistan, Japan and the USA following nuclear tests in the Indian sub-continent War and Peace is a documentary journey of peace activism in the face of global militarism and war.
TV debate on 'War and Peace'
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