Cut Uncut film festival in New Delhi starts today

A new film festival, the Cut-Uncut film festival in New Delhi, that begins from today 25 April (2013), will showcase scenes from Bollywood films including the first attempt of an on-screen kiss deemed too racy for Indian viewers. The festival will feature unedited versions of films which fell foul with the Censor Board that continues to scrutinize movies before their release. Portrayals of sex, nudity, social unrest and violence can still be kept out of movie halls under India's strict laws that were first drafted in 1952 and later amended in 1983. Coinciding with Bollywood's 100-year anniversary, Cut-Uncut is being organised by the ministry of information and broadcasting to demonstrate its more open-minded approach, it is understood. The festival will open with a screening of the 1933 classic Karma that starred Himanshu Rai and Devika Rani, whose on-screen kiss was considered the first in a Bollywood film and was deleted then. A 2004 documentary called the Final Solution that takes a look at the highly sensitive subject of Hindu-Muslim religious rioting, will also be shown after it was banned for being highly provocative. Things have changed with the times though. These days though Bollywood is flooded with sexually suggestive material and scantily-clad leading ladies, but sex remains a taboo and films showing kissing scenes are given an ‘A’ certificate limiting them to viewers over 18. Of late, Dibakar Banerjee ran into trouble last year with the Censor over his film Shanghai and had to delete two scenes depicting violence in the political thriller, including a high-caste character murdering a man of a low-caste. The festival will run from 25 to 30 April (2013).