India

‘Justifies Indian policy in Kashmir, has fascist features’, Israeli filmmaker elaborates on The Kashmir Files criticism

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Still from the film The Kashmir Files.

New Delhi: Israeli filmmaker Nadav Lapid, whose critical remarks on ‘The Kashmir Files’ movie at a film festival have raised a storm, has stood by them and said “someone has to speak up”.

Elaborating on the same, the filmmaker said that the film has “fascist features and it Justifies Indian policy in Kashmir”. The filmmaker made the comments during his interview with the Israeli news website Ynet.

Earlier,  Nadav Lapid, who served as the Jury head of IFFI (International Film Festival of India) 2022 held in Goa, called director Vivek Agnihotri’s film a “propaganda, and vulgar film”.

The IFFI head said that he was “shocked” to see the film in the competition section of such a prestigious film festival. The 53rd edition of the International Film Festival of India ended on Monday.

“We were, all of us, disturbed and shocked by the 15th film: The Kashmir Files. That felt to us like propaganda, vulgar movie, inappropriate for an artistic competitive section of such a prestigious film festival. I feel totally comfortable to share openly these feelings here with you on stage. Since the spirit of having a festival is to accept also a critical discussion which is essential for art and for life,” Nadav said during his address to the audience.

This year in May, the controversial film was banned by Singapore, which has cited concerns over its “potential to cause enmity between different communities”.

“The film will be refused classification for its provocative and one-sided portrayal of Muslims and the depictions of Hindus being persecuted in the ongoing conflict in Kashmir,” the Singapore government had said in a statement in May, 2022.

“These representations have the potential to cause enmity between different communities, and disrupt social cohesion and religious harmony in our multi-racial and multi-religious society,” the statement added.

The city-state had said under its film classification guidelines, “any material that is denigrating to racial or religious communities in Singapore” will be refused classification.

 

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