Lipstick Under My Burkha

When India's Central Board of Film Certification refused to certify Lipstick Under My Burkha in 2017, citing its "lady-oriented" content as problematic, the irony was lost on no one except the censor board. A film about women being denied agency was itself denied release — until a public campaign and court ruling overturned the ban.

Alankrita Shrivastava's debut feature follows four women in Bhopal: a burkha-clad college student who dreams of being a pop star, a beautician who runs away from an abusive marriage, a housewife who sells saris to pay for her secret phone, and a 55-year-old widow who rediscovers her sexuality through erotic fiction. The film cross-cuts between their stories with an energy that is part Pedro Almodóvar, part small-town Indian rebellion.

What makes the film remarkable is not its "message" but its texture: the four women speak freely to each other (and to the audience) about sex, ambition, loneliness, and rage — topics Indian cinema has historically treated with either silence or tragic melodrama. The censor board, in its accidental wisdom, identified exactly what makes the film radical.