Tollywood divided over functioning of regional officer of CBFC Kolkata

The local Central Board of Film Certification office is now in the midst of turmoil. While one director has shot off an email to CBFC chairperson Prasoon Joshi on Wednesday alleging harassment for 76 days since he applied for online certification, the other complained to

Eastern India Motion Pictures Association

(EIMPA) while accusing regional officer

Samrat Bandopadhyay

of threatening him. Some relief, however, came on Thursday when a group of producers called up TOI to appreciate the swiftness with which work is now getting done at the CBFC Kolkata office.

Tapas Dutta, the director of “Mon Chhuye Jae”, had applied for certification on December 27. On Thursday, he got the certificate. This, he said, is a contrast to the fate of his earlier film– ‘Shankarbabu Ex Minister’ – which has been waiting for recertification since 2015 when Bhaswar Gangopadhyay was the regional officer. “Till today, my producer is asking what happened to the recertification of that film,” Dutta said. Sudipto Banerjee, director-producer-actor of ‘Aloukik Jyotish’, went home happy on Thursday with the certificate of his film that was pending since October. The cut verification for Narayan Chandra Das’ “Shudhu Tomari Protikhya” was done on Thursday though its application was done in August. Dayashankar Gupta, producer of “Pratighat”, and Indira Roychowdhury, the producer of “Ishq Bewafa”, both said Bandopadhyay had given the nod for starting the certification process of their films on Thursday.

Expectedly, Bandopadhyay was happy with these positive feedback. “It’s our duty to do the work,” he said. However, he refused to entertain any questions on the unflattering reactions from directors who had shot complaint letters. Requesting Joshi’s intervention, director Saumya Sengupta of the controversial KC Paul documentary titled “The Geocentric Man”, had shot off an email since he is yet to decipher the status report of the examination committee in Kolkata. “The regional officer informed that he still has no update on the comments we received and gave us no explanation on what we need to do to get the censor certificate. Moreover, he misbehaved with us and turned us down saying he is too busy to deal with us right now,” the email alleged.

A hassled Ranjan Chowdhury, the director of “Chirodiner Chirodiner Ek Onnyo Premer Golpo” who was unofficially told that he needs to mute the word ‘Musalman’ from four dialogues in his film, claimed: “I complained to EIMPA because the regional officer threatened me for speaking to the media on this issue. But he didn’t have any time to answer my question.”