A Bengali film based on the theme of euthanasia is all set to hit the screen in May this year after getting approval from the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC).
The movie Pupa would be probably first on the subject of euthanasia after the Supreme Court had recently recognised a ‘living will’ made by terminally-ill patients for passive euthanasia.
A five-judge constitution bench, headed by Chief Justice of India Dipak Mishra had on March 9 last said passive euthanasia and advance living will are ‘permissible.’
CBFC has given a certificate to the Bangla film Pupa, a movie which debates the issue of euthanasia after the regional office here had initially asked the director to cut all scenes showing syringe and vials.
Director Indrashis Acharya said, the CBFC Mumbai agreed to give U/A certification to the film and only recommended putting a disclaimer that the film did not promote mercy killing and blur the label of the syringe and vial.
“The CBFC Kolkata had six months back asked me to cut the scenes showing syringe and vials administered into the body which I did not agree. I then moved the revising committee and after the six-month-long battle now I am sensing victory. I hope to release the film commercially by this May,” Acharya said today.
He said the revising committee, which consisted of a popular actor and a well-known director, did not find anything objectionable in the scenes showing syringe and vials and “found the film’s treatment of the issue of mercy killing subtle.”
Acharya also thanked the new CBFC Kolkata office head Samrat Bandyopadhyay for “His help in resolving the situation and ensuring the film, which had been screened in the Kolkata International Film Festival 2017, was screened before the Revising Committee in Mumbai on Thursday last.”
Pupa revolves round an expatriate Bengali in the US whose father has slipped into coma and how he was faced with a predicament whether or not to stay back in India.