Aishwarya Rai

Director Jagmohan Mundhra’s Provoked starring Aishwarya Rai is a real life story dealing with domestic violence. The film was sent for censorship late last month wherein it was passed with an ‘A’ certificate. This incidentally miffed the director.

“The film Provoked deals with domestic violence wherein Aishwarya Rai is subjected to physical, mental and verbal abuses by her husband. Hence the film had many abusive words. So we had to give it an adult certificate,” says Censorship Examining committee member Nandini Sardesai.

She further adds, “But Mundhra was not content with this outcome. So he agreed to delete the four letter words and got the film for re-censorship. Now it has been given a ‘U/A’ certificate.”

Sardesai says that Mundhra felt the need for the film to reach a wider audience because of its delicate issue. Giving the film an A certificate would have, thus limited the audience in the theatres. As a result, he agreed to delete abusive language from the movie.

Additionally, in order to reach a cross section of the society, Mundhra is also dubbing the film in the Hindi, Punjabi, Tamil and Telugu languages. However, Mundhra will have to apply independently for censorship of each dubbed version.

Though the release date of the film isn’t finalized, Mundhra is planning to release the movie after 4 April, once the exam and the Cricket World Cup fever subsides.

The film was also screened at the Cannes Film Festival in 2006.