Breaking “news” from Entertainment Weekly only days away from the Academy Awards:
EW has confirmed that Zero Dark Thirty has not been approved by Pakistan’s board of censors, and therefore has not been shown in any of the nation’s few movie theaters that play English-language films. But that’s not the whole story: according to the Associated Press, no distributor has even applied for permission to show Zero Dark Thirty in Pakistan. This means that while the movie hasn’t been officially censured by Pakistan’s government, it is unofficially unsanctioned there. DVDs of the film were being sold recently in the capital city of Islamabad — but the AP writes that rumors about a ban have driven at least two stores to stop carrying Zero Dark Thirty, while another has taken to selling it only under the counter.
Unsurprisingly, the film has seen no lack of controversy here in the U.S. For more on that, check out David Edelstein’s review on Vulture.
More from NBC. And Pakistan’s Dawn. Last year alone, Pakistani censors banned two Bollywood flicks.
