The screening of the movie “Barbie” was postponed to Punjab province of Pakistandue to its “shocking content”, the local authorities announced.

In Pakistan, films must be approved by the censor agency, which bans scenes if it deems them against the country’s social and cultural values. “The film will be fully examined and censored where we deem necessary,” Farooq Mahmood, the secretary of the Film Censorship Office of Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province, told AFP.

The comedy, in which the Hollywood stars Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling embodying the famous Barbie doll and her friend Ken, can be shown in cinemas when the process is complete, Mahmoud added.

It has not been specified which scenes were deemed “shocking” and for what reason.

However, the film will be screened as normal today in the capital Islamabad and in the province of Sindh, where the local censor gave its approval.

“I’ve been waiting months to see Barbie. It doesn’t make sense, to be shown in Karachi and Islamabad but not in Lahore,” commented Nusin Saad, a resident of Lahore, the capital of Punjab.

Last November the film Joyland, which won an award at the Cannes Film Festival and represented Pakistan at this year’s Oscars, was banned by the Pakistani government, which it deemed “contrary to decency and morals”, under pressure from Islamist parties. The film, which depicts a married man’s relationship with a transgender woman, eventually received approval from the national censor board, but remained banned in Punjab. In 2019, the film Zindagi Tamasha, which tells the story of a priest who is seen dancing at a wedding, was banned and its creator accused of blasphemy by a far-right religious party.