FTII Row: Anupam Kher Slams Filmmakers For Returning Awards

Just hours after 12 filmmakers including Dibakar Banerjee announced their decision to return their respective national awards; Anupam Kher slammed all of them for their decision. According to Kher, who has been the former chairman of Central Board of Film Certification, all the filmmakers have insulted the censor board jury and also the audiences who watched their films. He further claimed that some of the filmmakers are anti-Modi.

The decision comes in wake of the appointment of TV actor and BJP member Gajendra Chauhan as the chairman of Film and Television Institute of India. As soon as the news flashed, a group of 12 filmmakers including Bollywood director Dibakar Banerjee and senior documentary filmmaker Anand Patwardhan announced their decision to return their national awards. Other filmmakers in the list are Paresh Kamdar, Nishtha Jain, Kirti Nakhwa, Harshavardhan Kulkarni, Hari Nair, Rakesh Sharma, Indraneel Lahiri and Lipika Singh Darai.

Filmmaker Dibakar Banerjee said, “I am not here out of anger, outrage. Those emotions have long been exhausted. I am here to draw attention. Returning my very first National Award which I received for 'Khosla Ka Ghosla' is not easy. It was my first film and for many my most loved”. About the silence from Bollywood on the issues, Banerjee said, “When engineering students protest, do we expect the companies that employ engineers to unite behind those students”. Patwardhan said, “As common citizens who don’t believe in armed struggle; this is our weapon of protest”.

After the press conference, which was held in Mumbai, the filmmakers addressed to the Prime Minister and President in a joint statement, writing, “It has become imperative that we see the government’s stonewalling of students’ protest in a context. The Information and Broadcast Ministry has appointed people with a narrow vision in the institutions under them. FTII, Children’s Film Society and CBFC are examples that the film fraternity has objected to”.

Source: mid-day.com