Badhshala has been deferred indefinitely

Owing to intervention from the government, the scheduled nationwide screening of the film Badhshala has been delayed indefinitely, the film unit said on Friday.

As the movie was slated to be released on Friday, the film unit marked the day as a ‘Black Friday’ in the history of the Nepali film industry, organising a solidarity programme at Mandala Theatre in Anamnagar. “We take this ban as direct intervention in the freedom of expression,” the unit said in a statement. “Unless something is done about it promptly, similar interventions could be meted out to other forms of art as well.” Badhshala depicts conflict-era torture alle-gedly committed at the Nepal Army’s Bhairavnath Battalion in 2003-2005. The Army had expressed serious exception to the film’s “exaggeration in plot” and claimed that it would tarnish the image of the “reputed” institution. After the Army lobbied for a ban on its screening, the Ministry of Infor-mation and Communi-cations, on January 18, asked the Film Develop-ment Board to not issue a screening licence for Badhshala .