Freedom of speech and expression has been a trending topic in the country and at this year's Dharamshala International Film Festival, out of four participating nations, India stands as the odd one out to have a censor board.
Independent filmmakers Lijo Jose Pellisery from India, Mano Khalil from Switzerland, Yoshinori Sato from Japan and Yaniv Berman from Israel today spoke at length about freedom in filmmaking in their respective countries.
Director of the critically-acclaimed "Angamaly Diaries", Pellisery said they lucked out with the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC), even when they felt the movie could have landed in trouble due to its controversial subject of pork trade.
"The best part is we have revised set of rules every month with the CBFC. We don't know what to cut, what to make. We expected 'Angamaly Diaries' to be chopped off a lot as it had many detailed references to the pork business.
"But what happened is that they expected it to have a lot of bad words and only focused on those. And in the process, they missed all this pork," he said.
Khalil, who presented his film "The Swallow", said there is no censorship in Switzerland but situation is starkly different in his home country, Syria.
"You may like the movie or not... You may give the money or not but nobody asked me what the movie is about in Switzerland and Kurdistan. But in Syria, when I made my first movie, I had to have every page of my script stamped and approved by the secret police there.
"Once that happens, you can't make any changes in the film while shooting. Many of the filmmakers have stopped receiving funding as they went and made films the way they wanted to," he said.
The directors were in conversation with noted critic- author Aseem Chhabra at 'Charting Troubled Waters' panel discussion today.
Filmmaker Yoshiniro Sato, whose "Her Mother" will be screened tomorrow, said though his film talks about death penalty, a practice prevalent in Japan, the film did not face any hurdles, in terms of censorship.
"We don't have censorship. But for playing in the theatre, big-budget movies have to talk the categories, not art-house films.
"I think the people are coming to watch the film in Japan these days. I talked to them about the subject of death penalty and I learnt that they are kind of against the death penalty. It's not like I'm having a big reaction from the audience but I think because of the film, people have started talking."
Israeli director Yaniv Berman said when he made a movie based on his experience of serving in the Army, he was slammed but the film did see the light of day.
There is, however, a pattern of certification where films are divided on basis of "below and above age of 16".
"I made a film, 'The Alpha Diaries', which talked critically about the Army based on my experience in the forces. Some of the filmmakers are called traitors, saying 'you not only make films against the country but also go outside to show it'. The military cell, from which you have to seek approval when you make a film, did not like the film but they did not stop me from putting it out in the public.
"But there is freedom of speech in Israel. The ministry of culture wants to get involved in Israeli film fund. If that happens that will be a problem for us but I don't see that happening," he said.
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