Anjani Putra screening resumes after court gives go-ahead

The screening of Sandalwood movie 'Anjani Putra' was briefly stopped at all cinema theatres across the state on Friday based on court orders, which were enforced by the police.

Later in the day, the 34th City Civil and Sessions Court vacated the stay after the film crew tendered an apology and requested the court to allow the screening after deleting dialogues which some advocates took objection to.

Following this, the screening of the movie in 360 cinemas across the state was allowed after 6 pm on Friday.

The movie, featuring "Power Star" Puneeth Rajkumar, had no shows since Friday morning. While a majority of theatres missed three shows starting from 10.15 am (morning), 1.15 pm (matinee) and 4.15 pm, a few missed screening of two shows.

Around 17 seconds of the movie in the second half, both audio and visual portions with derogatory dialogues about an advocate character, were cut.

The distributor of the film Manjunath Gowda said, "We approached the censor board and had the portion of the movie removed in keeping with the advocates' requirement. A fresh certificate was made and submitted for the perusal of the court seeking an advance hearing. The court then allowed the movie screening from the next show onwards."

"We thought freedom of expression through cinemas can be controlled only by the censor board. But we have now learnt that anyone can stop a movie's screening if they do not like something in it by just getting a stay," said A Harsha, director of Anjani Putra.