“Lipstick Under My Burkha” is an upcoming Indian film made in Hindi. The film is directed by Alankrita Shrivastava and produced by Prakash Jha. The movie stars Ratna Pathak Shah, Konkona Sen Sharma, Aahana Kumra in the lead along with Sushant Singh and Vikram Massey. In January 2017, the Central Board of Film Certification refused to certify the film, stating that “The story is lady oriented, their fantasy above life.”
Producer Ekta Kapoor wanted the film to reach out to the wider audience rather than being confined to the art film zone, so she came up with a ‘sassy promo’ for her upcoming movie “Lipstick Under My Burkah”. But the movie hit a roadblock soon after Ekta came onboard as a distributor.
Ekta said,”The film made me angry. I saw the film and realised we really live in a world where as women we are not allowed to do or say anything. Here was this entertaining movie that spoke about what I think. Why didn’t I think of it? I loved it.”
Film producer Prakash Jha, called her to watch the movie and asked whether she would like to distribute and she immediately agreed. On this Ekta said,”I decided to distribute this movie knowing that I might not earn profits. Then I was hoping we would get a certificate and that’s when it landed into a soup with the censor board.”
When Central Board of Film Certification has cleared the film for release. Ekta and his team came up with a poster in which woman showing her middle finger. Ekta said,”I thought, will this be an ‘artie’ movie that 200 people will watch or a film where I’ll get more and more women to see it? So, we got a sassy promo out, edgy as hell with great Hindi ‘masala’ music and have more women pay attention to it. I felt this was the way to go forward.” She added,”When you wear lipstick for vanity, it makes you look good. A lot of women say they wear lipstick when they want to feel good. I read somewhere ‘there is nothing that a right shade of lipstick can’t fix’. So many acts by us are a form of rebellion.”
The movie is all set to release it on 28 July.