SMOKING HOT: TO WARN OR NOT TO WARN?
Explicit anti-smoking videos may go off the big screen; film frat offers alternatives
Censor Board chief Pahlaj Nihalani’s suggestion that “the anti-smoking videos inserted in the beginning and middle of films is painful for the filmmakers and should go” may just result in these disclaimers going off the screen, and the film frat welcomes the move.
National Award-winning director Hansal Mehta says, “These disclaimers and ads are very unfair. I don’t really understand if they make any difference.” Agrees Omung Kumar, director of National Award-winning film Mary Kom. “I am a non-smoker and I am against smoking, yet I feel that the health ministry should spread awareness through other media. These ads are very ugly and disturbing.”
Last year, filmmaker Anurag Kashyap had moved court against featuring the smoking warning during his film Ugly, saying, “This clearly restraints the rights of filmmakers to freedom of speech and expression. This warning destroys the aesthetic value of a film and distracts audience from the movie, thus ruining the experience of watching a film.” Trade analyst Atul Mohan says, “The message does strike and stay somewhere at the back of the mind, but then there are other means to spread the message.”
But not everyone seems to be affected by the possible move. Filmmaker Dibakar Banerjee, for instance, has often said that smoking is bad for health. “Whatever gets the message across is fine,” he says. But Mehta feels a common stand is necessary: “The industry needs to stand together and united in the matter.”
Some say the same message ge can be conveyed in a more aesthetic way. “If one must have a video inserted, let the industry make one for the government ... something more aesthetic — Anurag had d also suggested it,” says Kumar.
A few days ago, filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt along with others had also met ministry officials, offering to make such a video. “Stars such as Salman Khan, Aamir Khan, Shahrukh Khan and others are willing to be a part of it,” he had said.
Interestingly, last year, the government had agreed to replace the anti-smoking short-film featuring a cancer victim, with another one.