The most controversial yet worth the hype film, Lipstick under My Burkha, written and directed by Alankrita Srivastava and produced by Prakash Jha, released last week and is a commercial hit at the box office given its week 1 box office collection of Rs 10 crore against Rs 6 crore production and post production cost (all inclusive).

Featuring Ratna Pathak, Konkona Sen Sharma, Plabita Borthakur and Aahana Kumar in the lead roles, the film was denied certification in January 2017 by the CBFC on the pretext that "the story is lady oriented, their fantasy above life. There are contagious [sic] sexual scenes, abusive words, audio pornography and a bit sensitive touch about one particular section of society.”

However, after an appeal to FCAT and a few voluntary and few forced cuts, the film was released on 400 screens all over India.

The film was screened at the Mumbai Film Festival back in October 2016 in India and internationally at the Tokyo Film Festival along with over 35 film festivals worldwide and it has even before its release, notably bagged 11 international film festival awards.

Lipstick Under My Burkha released in India on July 21 and had to juggle with Tiger Shroff’s Munna Michael and Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk. However, given that Alankrita Shrivastava's directorial opened in mere 400 screens and Munna Michael in 3000, the box office collection figures of week one are more satisfying than Munna Michael’s Rs 31 crores.

This week the critically acclaimed film is competing with another controversial flick Madhur Bhandarkar’s Indu Sarkar, Arjun Kapoor-starrer Mubarakan and Raag Desh.