CANNES, France (AFP) - A Bollywood film yanked from cinemas
in India because Islamic groups considered it blasphemous
has been shown on the sidelines of the Cannes film festival
(news - web sites), its screenwriter and co-director,
Owais Husain, said.
"Meenaxi: Tale of 3 Cities"
was screened Wednesday in the market section of the festival,
a sprawling area in which production companies around
the world show off hundreds of movies in the hopes of
doing overseas deals.
Husain, a painter-turned-director who
made the film with his father, told AFP he believed he
was now on the point of signing distribution deals in
the United States and Britain.
"Meenaxi", a tale about a writer's relationship
with a self-involved perfume-seller, was hounded out of
Indian cinemas last month when Islamic groups led by the
All India Muslim Council took exception to a line of a
song in the movie that was inspired by a quote from the
Koran.
"They misinterpreted some part of
the film and called it blasphemous ... it was totally
baseless," Husain said. The part in question was
a Koranic verse used to praise the beauty of the Prophet
Mohammed, which the filmmakers had changed to describe
the beauty of the leading lady, played by well-known Indian
actress Tabu. Husain said that, rather than try to argue
with the groups, he preferred to withdraw the movie. "I
put a year and a half of my life into this movie,"
he said.
The decision to take the film to Cannes came late, but,
despite some annoying technical problems, "there's
been quite a good response," he said. The kudos of
having been seen at the world's biggest showcase of cinema
would help "Meenaxi" return to Indian theatres,
Husain said, but the real push was from "the large
demand for it to come back" among distributors and
the Indian public.
