Filmmaker moves SHC against curb on screening of Ghost School
KARACHI: The Sindh High Court has issued notices to the secretary of culture department and the Sindh Board of Film Censors on a petition filed against blocking the screening of a film titled Ghost School in the province. A two-judge constitutional bench of the SHC comprising Justice Adnan-ul-Karim Memon and Justice Muhammad Jaffer Raza also put the advocate general of Sindh on notice for Aug 21.…
In a recent legal development, the Sindh High Court has directed the Sindh Board of Film Censors and the Secretary of the Culture Department to appear before the court on August 21. The matter revolves around a petition filed by British-Pakistani filmmaker Seemab Gul, along with associate producer Muhammad Yousuf Rehman, against the censor board's decision to deny a screening certificate for their critically acclaimed film, "Ghost School."
Gul, through her counsel Advocate Mirza Moiz Baig, argued that the film, which received the Best Director award at the UK Asian Film Festival and was nominated for Best Film at the Toronto International Film Festival, sheds light on the issue of ghost schools in Pakistan. The lawyer further noted that the film had been screened at the Red Sea Film Festival in Jeddah and had received critical acclaim for its "exceptional social realism and restrained storytelling."
Baig contended that the Sindh Motion Pictures Act, 2011, only empowers the Sindh Board of Film Censors to withhold a censor certificate if a movie is deemed "prejudicial to the glory of Islam or the integrity, security or defence of Pakistan or any part thereof, friendly relations with foreign states, public order, decency or morality, or amounts to the commission of, or incitement to, an offence."
He maintained that the censor board's decision to block the film's release in Sindh, issued on July 9, lacked a valid basis and, therefore, was not sustainable.
The petitioners also argued that there was no embargo on releasing the film in Sindh under Rule 16(2)(h) of the Sindh Censorship of Film Rules, 2014. Moreover, they claimed that no show-cause notice had been issued to them prior to the censor board's impugned decision, which was issued without giving the petitioners a fair hearing. Following a preliminary hearing, the two-judge constitutional bench of the Sindh High Court issued notices to the respondents and the Advocate General of Sindh for August 21.
Written by urgent.news from Dawn - Pakistan's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
