“Lipstick Under My Burkha” will screen in India after all. Per The Hollywood Reporter, India’s Film Certification Appellate Tribunal (FCAT) overruled the Censor Board’s initial decision to block the film’s release. With some voluntary edits, Alankrita Shrivastava’s feminist film will play in India under an “A,” or adults certificate, the equivalent to the MPAA’s NC-17 rating. According to director Shrivastava, a specific India release date will be announced in the next week or two.
Originally barred because of its its “lady oriented” story and “sexual scenes, abusive words, [and] audio pornography,” “Lipstick Under My Burkha” centers on four very different women establishing their own personal and sexual autonomy. Shrivastava told THR, “The FCAT has actually been fair in their observations and have supported the film.” She added that a few sex scenes have been shortened but the new edits “don’t affect the film thematically or in any other way.”
When the Censor Board originally deemed “Lipstick” inappropriate for theaters, Shrivastava — who wrote the film with an assist from Suhani Kanwar and dialogue from Gazal Dhaliwal — told us that the film’s “feminist pulse” is what caused offense.
“The film explores the lives of women in a way that has perhaps not been done before in India,” she observed. “And confronting those stories and that perspective has somehow rattled [the Board]. The Censor Board, it seems, is more comfortable dealing with popular mainstream cinema. Cinema that is more often than not created through a male gaze, where women are objectified and play very peripheral roles. But more than anything the Board is not used to dealing with films where women want to have agency over their own bodies and their own desires.”
Set in Bhopal, “Lipstick Under My Burkha” follows Rehana, Shirin, Leela, and Usha. As the film’s synopsis reads, “Rehana is the titular burkha wearer who sings at open mics in defiance of her father’s warnings; Shirin is a superstar saleswoman, but must keep this triumph a secret from her faithless husband; Leela is trying to juggle a Muslim lover, a Hindu fiancé, and her dream career as a bridal consultant; and Auntie Usha secretly reads racy novels and lusts after her swimming instructor. Two of the women are Hindu, two are Muslim, but all their stories come together when they attempt to challenge the sexual and social norms of Indian patriarchy.”
“Lipstick” made its U.S. premiere earlier this month at the Indian Film Fest of LA. It will kick off the New York Indian Film Festival on April 30.
In February the film took home the Audience Award at the Glasgow Film Festival. It has also received the Oxfam Award for Best Film on Gender Equality at the Mumbai Film Festival and the Spirit of Asia Prize at the Tokyo International Film Festival.
No word yet on whether the film will have a U.S. theatrical release.
