2020s ‘Biriyaani’ is without a doubt, one of the unique few movies which show the dire situation of a woman in an orthodox/ “traditional” community. The movie follows a young married Muslim woman, Khadeeja, who is forced to conceal her desires from her community in the name of religious and social norms. This Malayalam film’s theme and subject matter, however, seems to have caused many theater owners and film distributors from screening the movie.
Obviously a movie on a topic such as this will incite controversy, which is good in some ways. Talking about such things and bringing a relatively-unknown issue out in the open will only help the situation being recognized as a problem and people will start treating it as such. But to not screen the movie at all for having opinions about the movie which is not in its favour is not the right way to go about it and the film’s director-writer, Sajin Baabu has said the same thing.
However according to the reports that have been coming out recently, ‘Biriyaani’ is not allowed to be screened in the Kerala theaters due to its explicit sex scenes. The movie, which received international acclaim and a special jury mention at the 67th National Film Awards, also cleared by the Censor Board for screening with an ‘adults only’ certificate is being deliberately “sabotaged” by theater owners by covertly letting people know about the sex scenes – bringing about a new brand of “moral policing”.
‘Biriyaani’ globally premiered last year at the Asiatica Film Festival in Rome, and it fetched Kani Kusruti — who played the protagonist Khadeeja — the state film award for best female actor. The film has won numerous other awards – both international and domestic. It is a saddening sight when the ignorance of a few is causing many to not have access to a beautiful film. According to Sajin, he is planning to get the movie available for online streaming soon, where theater owners will not be able to do their moral policing
‘Biriyaani’ has been running in Kerala theaters for almost ten days now, since 26th March 2021 and it will be available for viewing in theaters, for the rest of the country during this weekend. Check out the trailer for this movie down below:
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