NEW DELHI, July 19 (Xinhua) -- The award-winning Hindi language film Lipstick Under My Burkha is finally slated for release in India on Friday.
"I'm very excited to see how people in India engage with the film," Alankrita Shrivastava said in an interview to a local newspaper. "At a deeper level, I feel a sense of victory, not just for myself but for the whole idea of women in India being able to express themselves and tell their stories from their point of view."
The film initially faced a ban from India's Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) for being "lady oriented" and containing "contentious sexual scenes, abusive words."
However, the film's directors filed an appeal following which the appellate authority asked them to make some cuts and in April accorded an adult certification to the film, which means its release is limited to adults (aged beyond 18 years).
The movie is based on the secret lives of four women trying to assert their personal and sexual rights. A burqa (veil) clad 18-year-old college girl, a young beautician, a mother of three and a 55-year-old widow who rediscovers sex life following death of her husband.
The film has already won the Oxfam award for best film on gender equality at the Mumbai film festival, the spirit of Asia prize at the Tokyo International film festival and an audience choice award at the Glasgow film festival.
India's CBFC, commonly referred as censor board, has a long history of ordering cuts in the scenes of movies or barring them altogether on the grounds of being "racy" or "hurting religious sentiments."
Last week the board stalled the release of a documentary on the Indian Nobel laureate Amartya Sen because the director refused to beep out Sen saying "Gujarat," "cow," "Hindu India" (Hindutva view of India) in the documentary The Argumentative Indian.
