Hansal Mehta’s Omerta starring Rajkummar Rao is finally releasing tomorrow in India. The film was pending at the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) as the filmmakers wanted the film to release with minimal cuts. The filmmakers had a grueling time convincing the Board to employ minimum cuts on the film so that any crucial scenes or the essence of the film doesn’t get lost. Mehta had been behind CBFC with a hammer and tongs so that his film does not suffer much. However, one particular scene where Rajkummar appears in the buff and has frontal nudity had to be chopped off.
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When asked about the cut, Mehta said, “That scene was not intended for titillation. I would never do that. It depicts Omar Shaikh’s violence and his state of mind before he embarked on one of his evil acts. Some member of the CBFC got the essence of this scene but had to ask for it to be done away with because of the guidelines. It doesn’t hamper the film’s narrative in any way so I had to accept it.”
Mehta had earlier said about the wait for the release of the film, “We knew that it wouldn’t be a cake walk with the Censor Board given that the film has a fair bit of violence and strong language. We didn’t want cuts that would take away the essence of the film, so we had to wait. The Censor Board Chief and members of the revising committee understood how certain scenes could not be removed since they are essential for audiences to understand how a terrorist’s mind works. Hence the wait and that’s why a decision has been taken to release Omertà on May 4th.”
Omerta is a true story based on the horrifying true story of one of the most dreaded terrorists of our time, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh. The film is woven around terror attacks which started from kidnapping of foreign tourists, the 9/11 world trade centre attacks, the Mumbai terror strike and the brutal and inhumane heading of American journalist Daniel Pearl. Omerta is shot in real locations across London and India and recreated localities of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Tihar Jail.
