Israeli filmmaker Nadav Lapid, who described ‘The Kashmir Files’ as a Vulgar and propaganda film, was severely criticized in the past for his statement. However, now three jury members of the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) have openly supported Lapid’s statement. These include American producer Jinko Gotoh, French film editor Pascale Chavance and French short film maker Javier Angulo Barturen.
Lapid was the Chief of International Jury of IFFI. He termed ‘The Kashmir Files’ as ‘an vulgar and propaganda film’ at the closing ceremony on the last day of nine-day film festival.
The remaining three jury members of IFFI released a joint statement on Saturday which said, “At the festival’s closing ceremony, Nadav Lapid, the jury’s president, made a statement on behalf of the jury members stating: ‘We were all of disturbed and shocked by the 15th film, The Kashmir Files, that felt to us like a vulgar propaganda movie, inappropriate for an artistic competitive section of such a prestigious film festival.’ We stand by his statement”
The jury members further said, “And to clarify, we were not taking a political stance on the film’s content, we were making an artistic statement, and it saddens us greatly to see the festival platform being used for politics and subsequent personal attacks on Nadav. That was never the intention of the jury.”
Earlier, Nadav Lapid had said after all the criticism on his statement that he stands by his statement because he knows how propaganda is recognized in the form of a film. Lapid said it is not a crime to make a bad film, but the film directed by Vivek Agnihotri is “incomplete, deliberately distorted and violent”.
Let us tell you that Agnihotri, writer-director of ‘The Kashmir Files’, along with some BJP leaders including Anupam Kher, Pallavi Joshi, Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant severely criticised Nadav Lapid for the statement.
Apart from these, Sudipto Sen, the only Indian among the jury members, has described Lapid’s statement as his ‘personal opinion’. Sen said that now if someone publicly chooses any one film and says something which is not expected. Then it is his personal views. It has nothing to do with the jury members. He said that whatever Nadav Lapid said about ‘The Kashmir Files’ was his personal opinion.