Sanal Kumar Sasidharan’s S Durga excluded from IFFI; Director moves to court

Sanal Kumar Sasidharan’s movie S Durga has won many International Awards at a lot of International Film Festivals. But the movie was excluded from the International Film Festival of India(IFFI).  And along with S Durga, Marathi film Nude was excluded from the 48th edition of the International Film Festival of India to be held in Goa from November 20 to 28.  S Durga director Sanal Kumar Sasidharan filed a written petition in the Kerala High Court challenging the decision of the ministry. The director said that “I want the ministry to go by the rule and not overlook the jury’s decision. They should behave like a democracy, not a dictatorship.” And he also said that he wanted the ministry to implement the jury’s decision and include films in the final list. Many Jury members expressed their displeasure over the ministry’s move to drop the films from the list they submitted, calling it “disappointing and sad”. The jury submitted its list to the ministry on September 20-21, but the line-up was made public only recently and without the name of the two films.  
According to some reports, the ministry objected because the film that was supposed to be screened at IFFI was ‘Sexy Durga’ and not ‘S Durga’, the version cleared by the censor board. The sources added that Nude could not make the cut as the submission was “technically incomplete”. Earlier Filmmaker Sujoy Ghosh resigned as the head of the jury of IFFI’s Indian Panorama section over the exclusion of this two films and following him two more jury members have quit.  According to reports, Gyan Correa and Apurva Asrani quit the jury to protest the decision to pull out the two movies. The ministry overruled the recommendation of the 13-member jury and decided not to screen Malayalam movie S Durga and Marathi film Nude. Sanal Kumar Sasidharan’s S Durga was earlier titled as Sexy Durga and the team changed this title because the Censor Board asked them to change it. The director had earlier opted out from IFFK with him movie saying that there are more movies that needed to be recognized and given a chance in the IFFK.