No Hindutva revival agenda in film, says director

Director Vinod Mankara distances himself from social media campaign by Hindutva groups

A scene from the Sanskrit movie Priyamanasam. Director Vinod Mankara has distanced himself from a social media campaign by Hindutva groups against exclusion of the movie from the IFFK.

Director Vinod Mankara has distanced himself from the social media campaign that his Sanskrit film Priyamanasam was excluded from the International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK) by the Kerala Chalachitra Academy as it contained Hindutva agenda.

Mankara said the film depicting the life of the 17th century poet-scholar Unnayi Warrier never intended any religious revivalist attempt.

In a conversation with

The Hindu from California, where he is engaged in the worldwide release of the third feature film in Sanskrit, Mankara said he highlighted his film’s exclusion to expose partiality and the lack of professionalism among selection committee members of the academy.

“These issues have been plaguing the academy for long. The committee members fail to distinguish between professional films and commercial films. Personal ego is eclipsing the academy’s power to differentiate between the good and the bad,” he said.

When asked about the social media campaign by Hindutva groups that a Sanskrit film with Hinduvta overtones was discriminated against by the academy, Mankara said he never ever subscribed to any divisive ideology.

“The story revolves around 17th century Travancore and deals with the life of a poet-scholar who worked as a temple staff. It would be quite impossible to tell the story without using images of temples and religious functions. But I had used such images to the bare minimum and that too to record the man and his times. The film had no religious revivalist agenda,” he said. Mankara said as a filmmaker with strong notions of plurality and coexistence, he had serious reservations about the way the film was being interpreted by fundamentalist groups.

He said the hour-and-a-half period film revolved around the mental conflicts and agonies experienced by Unnayi Warrier while he penned his magnum opus Nalacharitham Aattakkatha (Kathakali play). He said besides his love for Sanskrit, a desire to do something to revive the almost “dead” language prompted him to direct a movie in Sanskrit.