The Danish Girl was never cleared for TV viewing: CBFC chief Pahlaj Nihalani cl...

Two days after the scheduled telecast of Hollywood film The Danish Girl was cancelled, chief of Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) Pahlaj Nihalani has claimed the film was never cleared for TV screening.

The Danish Girl is the story of Lili Elbe, one of the first people who came out and went for gender reassignment surgery.The movie was scheduled to be aired on Sony Le Plex HD on Sunday.

Speaking to DNA, Pahlaj said, “We certified the film for ‘Adults’ with no cuts for a theatrical release. As per rules there is no separate certification for television broadcast. However since we wouldn’t want the distributor to miss out on some added revenue we agreed out of good faith to view the film on Thursday evening for possible re-certification. But even before we could view the film they had announced their telecast of The Danish Girl for March 26. How can they announce the telecast before censor certification? It’s completely illegal!”

“The movie went to CBFC for clearance three months ago and they were sitting on it. And now they have cancelled the broadcast citing that the issue is very sensitive... CBFC has put a ban across channels, and now no other channel can also show the film,” sources earlier told IANS.

Elaborating further, Nihalani told DNA, “We postponed the screening of another film and scheduled The Danish Girl after it was submitted to us with voluntary modification by the producers of the content, so that the ‘A’ certification could be possibly converted to ‘UA’ or ‘U’ for telecast. However when we viewed their modified version we found it unsuitable for telecast and refused a revised certification. That should’ve been the end of that.”

The Tom Hooper directorial is based on American author David Ebershoff’s debut novel with the same name. With stars like Alicia Vikander and Eddie Redmayne as leads, the film deals with the emotional upheavals in Lili Elbe’s life as she goes in search of her sexual identity.

The film, which released theatrically in India last year, was critically acclaimed and was nominated in multiple categories in Oscars 2016. Vikander won an Oscar in Best Supporting Actress category in 2016 for the film.