Protest by Dr. Biju, Kunhila Masilamani
Protesting the incident, another director Vidhu Vincent, who was part of the fair, withdrew her film from the fair. Following the developments in the fair, Dr. Biju raises some questions through a Facebook post. Biju, a director of films who has won many international awards, asks in the note on what criteria the films for the festival are selected. Facebook post below:
I am a person who has written long articles with factual reasons for the last 17 years that the film academy is not a transparent and democratic place and instead is a place where nepotism is rampant. The academy has never expressed a vision capable of giving any kind of encouragement to the academic quality of Malayalam cinema and it is the habit of the academy to constantly avoid those who criticize and give opinions. In the selection of films for film festivals and in the selection of juries for state film awards, it is common practice to include unqualified people in selecting members and to rotate the permanent jury members.
Freedom to disagree and criticize is a democratic right. The manner in which a protest by a girl armed with a phone camera at a film festival was arrested and removed by the police is surprising and shocking. There have been strong protests on many issues including in Thiruvananthapuram and Goa at the venues of the film festival. Those protests were not faced with arrests and removal by police. In my memory, there was an incident of police arresting protestors at the Kerala Film Festival almost four years ago. There was an incident where the police entered the theater and arrested a few people for protesting by not standing up while the national anthem was being played in the theatre. In the same year, when the National Anthem was screened in Goa, Pune and Kolkata film festivals, many people were seen protesting without standing up. But he was arrested by the police in the theater at the Kerala Film Festival, four years ago.
There is a reasonable question in the protest raised by director Kunjila regarding the Women’s Film Festival. What is the process by which films are selected for this fair? Who are the committee members who selected the films and what are the criteria for selecting the films? Every taxpaying citizen has a right to know this. As far as I understand, the Academy has not yet formulated any specific criteria or rules for selecting films for the Women’s Film Festival. The current practice is to screen some people’s films that they like. This laxity is a serious complacency. Kunjila’s question is relevant here. .Why is there no rules, criteria and selection committee for selecting films in the Women’s Film Festival?
Kunjila’s protest and subsequent arrest and its manner raises a more serious question before democratic Kerala. When ideological protests arise in a cultural platform like a film festival, the fascist method of suppressing it with the police started in Kerala.
What kind of humanity and politics is an academy talking regarding that cannot tolerate protests and criticism? . The contradiction and hypocrisy of showing anti-fascist films at a festival and at the same time deciding to arrest a woman protesting alone, unarmed, with the help of the police, needs to be realised. Fascism is the fear and suppression of protests and questions.
The academy should correct its attitudes and ensure transparent operations. It should be remembered that the arrest of a Kunjila does not eliminate the questions….
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