Signed by Rajendra Singh, chief executive officer of the CBFC , the new advisory makes it clear that incomplete works will not be encouraged, titles are subject to change, and announced release dates will not be taken into consideration. The Central Board of Film Certification ( CBFC ) released a new advisory dated October 26, 2026, for filmmakers seeking certification. This comes after 18 new members were announced to constitute the board, for the first time since 2017.
Preity Zinta, Pankaj Tripathi , Suniel Shetty, Pallavi Joshi, Ricky Kej, and Supriya Yarlagadda are among its members.
Director Amit Rai, known for films like Ohh My God 2 (2012), questions why the board doesn’t have a discussion with makers while making such rules. However, the response from within the film industry has not been as accepting. Diljit Dosanjh-starrer Satluj director Honey Trehan took to Instagram to express his disappointment with the new rules saying, “New Guidelines shows and underlines the Cowardness & the Dictatorship in the country not the Democratic approach towards the freedom of speech. “Filmmaking is an expensive medium. Redoing a lot of things after a completed film takes a lot of money. “It takes about a year-and-a-half or so to ingrain a film’s connection in the audience’s mind through the title, but now, one fine day, you can be asked to change that name. How would you reestablish that connection with a new name? The window is anyway narrow between certification and release date. he asserts, “But the entire process of CBFC’s certification is becoming more and more frustrating While he credits the governing body for not distinguishing between commercial and indie makers. Instead of simplifying things, the guidelines are making it all the more complicated. “But things like titles not being valid till the censorship is done, will make things difficult for the producers to adjust with. However, filmmaker Ahmed Khan, whose most recent directorial was Welcome To The Jungle, has a more balanced perspective towards the issue. “CBFC is important for all of us. There have been issues but they have been kind enough and they also understand what it takes in a filmmaking process. If they are rigid in something, they also have their reasons for it. Every new guideline gives a shiver down our spine, but we have to work with that.
It will be like making a film twice,” he says, adding that there is so much hassle that goes on with registering a title and it establishes a project’s connection with the audience much before the release. Filmmaker Onir says for independent cinema, the impact isn’t as much. He insists that CBFC asking for a complete film’s submission is “fair enough”, “but things like subtitling takes at a much later point. Trade analyst Atul Mohan, who was himself associated with the CBFC for three years (2014-17), insists that many of these guidelines were always there, “but no one followed it stringently”. Makers announce their film with a publicity campaign in mind, including release date, and now they would face a challenging time doing that,” he says. We, filmmakers, now will have to be more on our toes,” he says.
Earlier the hassle used to be about registering a title, now you will have to worry about it till later too.
