Ashvin Kumar, regista dell'acclamato documentario Inshallah, football (premiato con il National Award), torna nella sale con l'inquietante thriller The forest. Nel cast Javed Jaffrey e Nandana Sen, affiancati da due magnifici leopardi in prestito dalla Francia. In India la legge che disciplina l'utilizzo di animali sul set è molto restrittiva, da qui la scelta della location thailandese. Una troupe internazionale ha collaborato alla realizzazione della pellicola. The forest viene distribuito nel subcontinente nell'edizione in lingua inglese per evitare i paletti imposti dalla censura indiana. Trailer. Approfitto per segnalarvi l'articolo Can we ban the Censor Board, please?, di Diksha Kamra, pubblicato da The Times of India il 4 maggio 2012. L'articolo raccoglie alcune dichiarazioni rilasciate da Kumar. Di seguito un estratto:
'“With great difficulty, I have had the chance to release my first commercial film, “The Forest”, made four years ago. Finally, when it was about to hit the screens, the CBFC [Central Board of Film Certification] gave its trailer an ‘A’ certificate. The trailer has to be screened in the middle of an ‘A’ film only. It’s even delayed the release by a week. I show a story mentioning the Indian government, and I’m not allowed. I show someone lighting up in my film for a few seconds, and I’m told that I have to put a scroll about smoking being injurious to health, then I have to run a few lines on screen while the scene is shown. Then, I show two people - husband and wife - having sex, and that can’t be shown to the audience. So, I get tired of all this unwanted hassle and release the film only in English. (...) What is this Censor Board for? Can we ban the Censor Board, please? And yes, this is the only film which will be released in cinema halls as well as on the internet on the same day. That’s because, come what may, I - like any filmmaker - wish to reach out to as many people as possible”.'
