It’s a sad day for the film industry as the government took a decision to dissolve The Film Certification Appellate Tribunal (FCAT) and this left the film-makers and actors concerned as the FCAT was their only beacon of hope to release the movies which have a hard time in getting a green signal from the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC).
What is FCAT and how does it benefit the Film-makers?
The Film Certification Appellate Tribunal (FCAT) was introduced in 1983 as a statutory body by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India. If a movie ever ran into problems with the CFBC i.e if the filmmakers were not happy with the CBFC’s decisions regarding the release of their film, they had a chance to approach the FCAT, which would then interfere and allow the release of the movie with some necessary cuts. So basically the tribunal resolved issues with a broad-minded approach. FCAT played a major role in the release of some of the movies like – Lipstick Under My Burkha, Udta Punjab, Babumoshai Bandookbaaz, Haraamkhor.
With the tribunal gone, what’s next?
After this order, the filmmakers dismayed by the decision of the CBFC will have to approach the high court directly, instead of the FCAT for the redressal of their grievances. The norms will be stricter and it’s going to get difficult with the FCAT gone.
Several actors and filmmakers like Hansal Mehta, Vishal Bharadwaj and Richa Chadha took to their social media handles to express their opinion on this decision.
Check out some of the tweets here
Film-critic Namrata Joshi and actors like Guneet Monga, Jai Mehta also tweeted about the same on their social media handles.