Oscar Nominated director Ashvin Kumar’s Kashmir-based film finds itself in a tug of war with the CBF

Recently Ashvin Kumar, India’s youngest Oscar nominated director of the short film entitled Little Terrorist found himself in a tug for war to get his film No Fathers in Kashmir certified by the CBFC. And now, the film has had its own history with the CBFC since July 2018, when the film first applied for a certification. A process which usually would take 60-68 days took over 100 days to get a certification of ‘A’ in October despite it following all the lawful guidelines crafted by the board to receive a ‘U/A’ certificate.

No Fathers in Kashmir is a love story of two innocent 16-year-olds who are met with the same fortune of having lost their fathers who have disappeared in Kashmir with no certainty of their return. Interestingly, Ashvin has made two other short films earlier, entitled Inshallah Football and Inshallah Kashmir, both of which were first banned by the film certification board and later went on to win National Awards for each.

Now, when the filmmakers for their latest, decided to question and request for a revision of the certificate to U/A, the matter was applied to the FCAT, the final decision making body for film certification.

Upon the investigation of the matter, the FCAT, in its screening, which was held on 11th December, demanded the CBFC revising committee to give the film a proper verdict in a written order, in which they asked them to watch the movie again and give it its justified certification within 10 days, which was on 21st December.

Since then, the CBFC has already removed the order and asked for a further extension to give its order on the movie.

The film stars the two young actors in leads, Zara Webb, Shivam Rana in addition to having an impressive ensemble cast comprising of Kulbulshan Kharbanda, Soni Razdan and Anshuman Jha.

Speaking about it, director Ashvin Kumar said, “We went to FCAT for relief, they returned it to CBFC as the latter did not give us a legally mandated hearing. This is indicative of the CBFC's poor grasp of its mandate and legalities. It does not take 6 months to give a censor certificate and we still have no idea when we will get it. We have gone from 2 hearings in Bombay to one in Delhi and now back to Bombay and again back to Delhi. Our film No Fathers In Kashmir, tries to show Kashmir through empathy and compassion. THAT IS WHAT I BELIEVE WILL BRING PEACE, THE NEXT GENERATION, ARMED WITH TRUTH. If people start understanding the reality of what is going on there, they may actually stop believing the half truths and outright lies of propaganda and paid media”.

Well, we are with you, Mr. Kumar! Hope that justice is served in time!

Stick to this space for the latest in the world of entertainment!