No comment till I watch it: Jimmy on Udta Punjab

When asked for his view on the importance of Udta Punjab for today’s youth, he said, “...I don’t want to comment on something without watching it. I don’t want to say something right now and after watching the film, I regret that I shouldn’t have said something like that,” he added.

The Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) demanded 89 cuts, including references to Punjab and expletives used in Udta Punjab. Later, the Revising Committee brought down the cuts to 13. The film has now been granted an ‘A’ certificate with 13 cuts and censor board chief Pahlaj Nihalani has said that the film’s makers were never asked to drop Punjab from the title.

“Udta Punjab has been passed with an A certificate (restricted for adult audience)... We have given it 13 cuts,” said Nihalani. He said now the ball is in the producers’ court.

“Whether they are going to the court or tribunal, and what decision the court is giving, that’s for them to see. The producer claimed that we had asked for a change in the title, but we never asked them for it.” “The producer went to the media for publicity,” he added.

Co-produced by Phantom Films – one of whose owners is filmmaker Anurag Kashyap – and Balaji Motion Pictures – Udta Punjab is a film on the drug menace in Punjab. The Abhishek Chaubey directorial is scheduled to release on June 17.

The film has been in news ever since it came to light that the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) had demanded 89 cuts. Kashyap then condemned Nihalani for his dictatorial ways. Kashyap’s movie Paanch said to be based on the Joshi-Abhyankar serial murders in 1997, faced a lot of heat from the Censor Board. Black Friday also faced a stay order from The Bombay High Court and remained slated-to-release until the trial got over. The producers moved to the Bombay High Court, which is due to give its verdict later on Monday.