From Malay Mail · · 2m
Venice crowned her film. India's censors shelved it.
Anuparna Roy won Venice's best director prize, then watched India's film board call her debut a threat to society. She is back with a second film anyway.
In brief
Anuparna Roy won Venice's best director prize, then watched India's film board call her debut a threat to society. She is back with a second film anyway. A film can win for India abroad and still be ruled unfit for Indian screens, and for independent directors that gap is widening. Originally reported by Malay Mail.
Won Venice, blocked at home
Anuparna Roy, 28, took the best director prize in Venice's Horizons section in 2025 for Songs of Forgotten Trees. India's film board has now stopped it reaching cinemas there.
“I represented the country here, I won for the country.”
Called a threat to society
The censors rang her team with the verdict. A small, tender story about two women sharing a flat was judged dangerous enough to keep off Indian screens.
“A few days back, they called us and they said that it's a 'threat to society'.”
What the film actually is
Two migrant women share an apartment in Mumbai. One does part-time sex work, the other answers phones at a call centre. The film is about the friendship between them.
Santosh hit the same wall
Sandhya Suri's Santosh premiered at Cannes in 2024 to strong reviews, then fell foul of the censors. It looked at sexism, religious discrimination, caste and corruption in the Indian police.
A different Bombay
Her second film, Lovers of the Blue Night, follows Bangladeshi migrants in Mumbai living with poverty, grief and their sexuality. It is competing in Horizons, with winners announced tomorrow.
Propaganda gets made
Roy sees shrinking space for independent film in India, squeezed between mass-market Bollywood and political pressure on what can be said.
“It's good for those who can praise the government and make a propaganda film. I am not somebody who can do that.”
A board with real teeth
She suspects her public support for Palestinian rights is behind her trouble. The CBFC can order cuts or ban distribution outright, and critics say it has tightened under Modi since 2014.
Part of a new wave
Roy belongs to a rising group of women directing in India, alongside Payal Kapadia, whose All We Imagine As Light broke through at Cannes in 2024.
From call centre to Venice
She is largely self-taught, learning from friends and mentors. A few years ago she worked a call centre job in New Delhi, having left Purulia, a coal district in West Bengal. Mumbai came in 2023.
Never romanticise the poverty
Her mentors drilled one rule into her: no sympathy, no exaggeration. Empathy is harder to reach when hardship is the easiest thing to sell abroad.
“It's easy to sell poverty to Europe, right? It's a continuous struggle.”
The takeaway
A film can win for India abroad and still be ruled unfit for Indian screens, and for independent directors that gap is widening.
