The commotion continues at IFFI. Three members of the 13-member jury of the 48th International Film Festival of India (IFFI) Panorama section, namely Chairperson Sujoy Ghosh, editor Apurva Asrani, and filmmaker Gyan Correa, have resigned as protest against the dropping of the Marathi film Nude, and the Malayalam thriller S Durga, from the final list of 26 feature films, which was issued by the Information & Broadcasting Ministry, without consulting them.
Speaking about his decision to resign, like Ghosh did two days ago, National Award-winning editor Apurva Asrani said, “I stand with the chairperson of the jury. We have had a responsibility towards some very sincere films, and somewhere we have failed them. My conscience won't allow me to participate in the festivities in Goa. However, I wish all the other films good luck. Each one of them has been made with a lot of love and no controversy should take away from that.”
Sasidharan’s Malayalam film had been denied censor exemption twice and was finally cleared after he changed the title from Sexy Durga to S Durga. It was also screened at the MAMI (Mumbai Academy of Moving Images) Film Festival. Now the filmmaker has filed a writ petition in the Kerala High Court challenging the decision of the ministry. “I want the ministry to go by the rule and not overlook the jury’s decision. They should behave like a democracy, not a dictatorship,” he stated.
Meanwhile, Ravi Jadhav, director of Nude, has applied for a censor certificate and is also planning to move the Bombay High Court, asking for an explanation from the ministry for dropping his film. There is a likelihood of the ministry claiming that it was rejected because it was not a technically complete film. However, the filmmaker claims he had sent a screener to the Directorate of the film festival three months ago and they were ready with a DCP of the complete film but no one asked for it. “We are ready to showcase the film at any point,” he added.
Even as some of the members of the jury like Ruchi Narain and Nikhil Advani have expressed their dismay at the exclusion of two highly recommended films, Vivek Agnihotri maintains, “If Sujoy and Apurva are within their rights to resign… then even the ministry is within its rights to choose 20 of 22 films selected by the jury…IFFI is a Government of India initiative.”
In an atmosphere of heightened control, the decision of the courts will be crucial.
