New Delhi: The Film Certification Appellate Tribunal (FCAT) has ordered that the Censor Board must now allow the Anglo-American film “The Danish Girl” to be broadcast in India.
It said the film, starring Eddie Redmayne, shows the “travails and sufferings of a husband who struggles to find his own identity, believing that he should be a woman … His wife empathises with him, remaining by his bedside all through his sex reassignment surgery in the 18th century”.
The film had a theatrical release in India after being granted an A certificate by the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) in January 2017. However, in March it was decreed that as the film should be viewed only by “mature adults” it was refused the U / UA certification necessary for a movie to be shown on TV.
The Danish Girl, directed by Tom Hooper, is a fictional drama inspired by the lives of Danish painters Lili Elbe and Gerda Wegener (played by Alicia Vikander). Redmayne plays Elbe, one of the first known recipients of gender reassignment surgery.
In reversing the CBFC decision, the FCAT, chaired by Justice ManmohanSarin, cited a Supreme Court decision that granted recognition of gender identity to the transgender community by acknowledging the existence of the ‘third gender’.
In the appeal, Sony Pictures cited films including Milk, Brokeback Mountain, Boys Don’t Cry and D-Train, along with shows such as Shakti-EkEhsaas Ki and the Big F which had all be shown on Indian television and dealt with LBGT issues. The film studio has also offered cuts in 14 scenes and dialogues to fit the censorship laws with regard to television transmission.
