Vivek Agnihotri’s ‘The Kashmir Files’ has been breaking records after records at the box office ever since it hit the theatres on March 11, 2022. Many Bollywood celebrities have come forward to praise the movie, which is inspired by the true stories of Kashmiri Pandits. The latest to join the list is filmmaker Karan Johar who has gone on to call the movie ‘a movement’.
In an interview with Galatta Plus, Karan Johar heaped praises on Vivek Agnihotri’s directorial venture saying that the film should be a lesson for aspiring filmmakers on how to handle the content.
At around 10.55 minutes into the interview, Karan Johar said, “The Kashmir Files is not made on the budget like a lot of other movies. But it is probably going to be cost-to-profit the biggest hit of Indian cinema. I read on Box Office India and they said that such a movement hasn’t happened since Jai Santoshi Maa, since 1975,” said Karan.
Karan Johar went on to praise the makers for connecting with the masses. He added, “You have got to acknowledge there is something that is connecting with this nation and academically, you have to watch it. You have to watch it to absorb, to learn from it that look, there is this movement that has happened. It’s no longer a film, it’s a movement.”
‘The Kashmir Files’ is based on video interviews with first-generation Kashmiri Pandit victims of the Kashmir Genocide. It takes viewers back to 1989, when conflict erupted in Kashmir due to rising Islamic Jihad, forcing the great majority of Hindus to flee the valley. According to estimates, roughly 100,000 of the valley’s total 140,000 Kashmiri Pandit inhabitants migrated between February and March 1990. More of them fled in the years that followed until just about 3,000 families remained in the valley by 2011.
