Shamoon Abbasi has been in the news lately for his upcoming film, Durj, which was slated to release on October 18th in Pakistan. However, the film’s fate is now in doldrums (at least locally) as, according to recent news reports, all censor boards of Pakistan have banned the film.
According to The News International, the censor boards across the country have imposed a complete ban on the film but have not issued any statement on why the film has been banned.
In an exclusive chat with Something Haute, Shamoon revealed that he is baffled by this sudden development.
“Yes, it’s strange how both provincial boards had cleared it earlier and later on it was forcefully revoked. Now anonymous people are also pushing cinemas to bring down the trailers and posters,” he said.
Durj was listed in the ‘coming soon’ section of all cinemas until last week. However, it is now only available in Atrium cinemas’ upcoming movies section.
Read: ‘Durj’ narrates a frightful tale of a Pakistani man-eater
The actor also expressed that he is unable to understand why the ban was imposed. “They simply banned it in the federal region, the rest of Pakistan was cleared. [There’s no reason cited as to] why they want it down so badly,” he added.
Durj is based on true events revolving around the dark subject of cannibalism, hence it was always a concern whether the film would get a clean chit from censor boards in Pakistan, especially without any cuts. Shamoon claims that the subject cannot be a reason for its ban.
“It was evident that the film is about cannibalism since the trailer was released. The trailers were cleared from censor boards. How can they now object about the subject? Also, the film is not gory, vulgar or anti-state; that’s why we want a fair panel to review it,” Shamoon insisted.
Nevertheless, overseas Pakistanis still have a chance to watch it. Shamoon recently shared a list of international cinemas that will screen Durj in UK, USA and Canada from October 11th, while people in UAE, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain can watch it from 10th October.
