National award-winning filmmaker Madhur Bhandarkar on Thursday said that “selective outrage” over films was wrong.
Talking to reporters on the sidelines of 48th International film Festival of India (IFFI), Mr. Bhandarkar said that many of those who were backing Sanjay Leela Bhansali over his controversial film Padmavati , did not support him when Indu Sarkar , a film set in Emergency era, came under fire.
“I have said very often that when it came to my film, I was disillusioned because I did not get any support from anyone, or from any intellectual. The selective outrage of people over films is wrong. I thought those people who also speak of freedom of expression will come and will support. There was no support from that side,” Mr. Bhandarkar said.
The filmmaker said that making a film based on history or politics was a “big problem” irrespective of the people in power and that the best way to get around the issue, was to fashion the film as fiction.
Facing the challenge
“Whatever the administration, these things happen. We are a diverse country. The Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) said you call the movie fiction, so I added a big disclaimer. Then no one has a problem. But if you are saying it is real and the story is about history and politics, then it is a big problem. You cannot make it. Somebody will come and make a petition aimed at stopping the film,” he said.
Mr. Bhandarkar elaborated on the travails he had to face as director of Indu Sarkar .
“I suffered a lot in July 2017. We had to change a lot of things in the film. I was alone in fighting the battle with my team, from the High Court to Supreme Court to the Censor Board to the States, everywhere. There was a lot of difficulty and this has been happening for some time now,” Mr. Bhandarkar said, naming several other films which faced hostility over a variety of reasons.
He said that the CBFC should be the final authority over release of films and there should not be scope for any other individual or organisation to usurp that role.
“Once the censor board passes the film, then no one should have an objection and the movie should be released,” he said.
‘World more dangerous’
Dialogue writer Ranjit Kapoor too rued the lack of freedom of expression at present. Interacting with the media, Mr. Kapoor, who wrote the dialogues for the celebrated shoe-string budget film Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron — a satirical take on corruption in the 1980s — felt an atmosphere of fear was prevalent in the country.
“There are lot of incidents which I am witnessing today, which convince me that the world we live in is more dangerous than say, the one which existed in the days of Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron (JBDY).
“If that low-budget cult film were to be made today, its makers would be beaten up,” Mr. Kapoor said at an IFFI programme organised to pay homage to JBDY director Kundan Shah who died in October this year.
“At that time we used to feel that there is freedom of expression. I do not see it now,” lamented Mr. Kapoor, who also wrote dialogues for films like Bandit Queen and Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa .
Meanwhile, the ‘Accessible Films’ section for the visually impaired opened on Wednesday with the screening of Secret Superstar and Hindi Medium at IFFI 2017.
Accessible to all
Saksham – a Delhi-based organisation has added audio description and language subtitling to these movies to make them accessible to all.
Rummi K. Seth, managing founder, Saksham, said, “This interesting project was started way back in 2005. In special scenes of films where there are no dialogues, a blind person won’t know what is happening. We have a voice-over and a scriptwriter and we all sit and decide as to what needs to be written to fill that space.”
