Thiruvananthapuram: A special screening of the controversial Malayalam movie S Durga will be held during the upcoming state movie gala, International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK), scheduled to begin here next month.
The move comes at a time when uncertainty continues over the screening of the Sanal Kumar Sasidharan-directed film in the Indian Panorama of the International Film Festival of India (IFFI), which comes to a close in Goa on Tuesday.
Veteran director and Kerala Chalachitra Academy chairman, Kamal said the special screening of S Durga at the festival is a "mark of protest" and "political resistance" against Center's move to drop the movie from IFFI even after it was selected by an expert jury.
Curtains will go up for the 22nd edition of IFFK here on December 8.
"There will be a special screening of S Durga as part of IFFK. We have discussed the plan with its director Sanal and he has agreed to it," Kamal told PTI.
The Perumazhakkalam director said Kerala had always expressed its resistance to the fascist tendencies of banning art forms and films.
"The special screening is part of Kerala government's strong policy against fascism. There was politics behind the Information and Broadcasting Ministry's decision to drop S Durga. And we cannot accept that," he said.
The controversy-ridden S Durga received a U/A certificate from the Central Board of Film Certification, along with no cuts and 22 mutes.
The director had moved the Kerala High Court after the movie was pulled out from the Panorama section by the ministry.
Though the high court had directed the ministry to ensure the screening of the movie at IFFI, the center filed an appeal against the single judge's decision.
However, a division bench refused to stay the single judge's order and directed that the film be screened after the jury viewed the certified print of the film while admitting the center's appeal.
The film, a road movie that follows the horrifying experience of two hitchhikers, a man and a woman, at the hands of two men in the dead of the night, won the Hivos Tiger Award in the International Film Festival Rotterdam 2017.
