On November 29, filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri called out Israeli filmmaker Nadav Lapid for calling The Kashmir Files a ‘vulgar propaganda’ film. In a video statement released on Twitter, Agnihotri said, “Friends, yesterday at IFFI Goa, the Jury Chairman said that The Kashmir Files is a propaganda and vulgar film. This is not something new for me. Such statements have been given by terrorist organisations, urban Naxals, and people who belong to the Tukde Tukde gang. But what surprised me is that the narrative of terrorist sympathisers who claim Kashmir is not an integral part of India was supported at an event organised by the Government of India. Furthermore, the narrative [propagated at IFFI’s platform] was used by some ‘Indians’ against India.”
Terror supporters and Genocide deniers can never silence me.
— Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri (@vivekagnihotri) November 29, 2022
Jai Hind. #TheKashmirFiles #ATrueStory pic.twitter.com/jMYyyenflc
He added, “Who are these people? These are the same people who have been calling this film propaganda since I started researching the topic four years ago. This film was made after personal interviews with 700 people. Are these 700 people whose parents and siblings were killed in broad daylight, who was gang-raped and cut into two pieces propaganda and vulgar? The land that used to be a Hindu land has no Hindus left. Hindus are being selectively killed there even today. Is this propaganda and vulgar? Yasin Malik confessed to his crimes and is currently lodged in jail. Is this propaganda and vulgar?”
Challenging the urban Naxals, intellectuals and Lapid to prove the film wrong, he said, “Friends, again and again, The Kashmir Files is deemed as a propaganda film. That means the genocide of Hindus never happened there. So I challenge all these intellectuals and urban Naxals of the world, I challenge the “great” filmmaker from Israel to prove that a single event or dialogue of the film is completely false. If they succeed, I will stop making films. Friends, who are these people who stand against India? These are the same people who hid the truth about Mopla.”
“These are the same people who hid the truth about direct action days where lakhs of Hindus were killed. These are the same people who hid the truth about Kashmir. These are the same people who were selling pyres for a few dollars during Covid. Now, as I have announced Vaccine War, they have stood against it. But I am not going to get scared. You can issue as many fatwas as you want, but I will keep fighting. Jai Hind,” he further added.
The IFFI controversy
On November 29, an Israeli filmmaker and International Film Festival of India (IFFI) jury chairman Nadav Lapid said called filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri’s film ‘The Kashmir Files’ “vulgar” and “propaganda”. During his closing remarks at the festival, he said he was “shocked” and “disturbed” by the inclusion of the film in the competition section.
He said, “Usually, I don’t read from paper. This time, I want to be precise. I want to thank the director and head of the programming of the festival for its cinematic richness, diversity and complexity…There were 15 films in the international competition — the front window of the festival. Fourteen out of them had cinematic qualities…and evoked vivid discussions. We were, all of us, disturbed and shocked by the 15th film, The Kashmir Files. That felt to us like a propaganda, vulgar movie, inappropriate for a competitive artistic section of such a prestigious film festival.”
The Kashmir Files
Directed by filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri, The Kashmir Files was released on March 11, 2022. The film was a blockbuster and widely appreciated for showing the true story of the exodus and genocide of the Kashmiri Pandits in the Vally in the 1990s. The film’s description on IFFI’s website reads, “Krishna Pandit is a young Kashmiri Pandit refugee living with his grandfather Pushkarnath Pandit – who has been a witness to the 1990 genocide of Kashmiri Pandits. He had to flee from Kashmir and has been fighting for the revocation of Article 370 all his life. Krishna believes his parents died in an accident in Kashmir. As a student of JNU, under the influence of his mentor, Professor Radhika Menon, he refutes the genocide and fights for Azad Kashmir, discovering the truth only after his grandfather’s death.”
