The Smriti Irani jury!

One can always expect highhandedness when Smriti Irani is around, now in her new avatar as the head of the Information and Broadcasting ministry. The I& B minister recently changed the films handpicked by the jury for the 48 th International Film Festival of India (scheduled to open from November 20^th in Goa) and totally dropped 2 films: Nude and S.Durga.

Jury head Sujoy Ghosh resigns

In protest to this highhandedness, the Jury head and film director, Sujoy Ghosh(director of Kahaani) resigned. The move was a bold one as Smriti Irani’s ministry had dropped Ravi Jadhav’s film Nude and Sanal Kumar Sasidharan’s film S Durga from the shortlist without informing the jury.

Two gems of films: Nude and S. Durga

“Nude”, a Marathi film is the story of a woman’s struggle for survival in Mumbai as a nude model. It was the jury’s unanimous choice as the opening film of the Indian Panorama. But the final list released yesterday by the I & B Ministry did not feature the two movies. A statement issued by the ministry said that the section will now kick off with Vinod Kapri’s Hindi film Pihu.

Malayalam director Sasidharan, who directed S Durga, wrote in his post on Facebook, “”Next time onwards a single member jury is enough. The Smriti Irani Jury! Actually I am not feeling any kind of grievance in the removal of S.Durga from the final jury list of Indian Panorama by the BJP government.

I cant expect anything less from them. I can even imagine that next time, they might amend the law and make the I&B minister as the jury head to avoid controversy. But what makes me sad is the silence of the intellectuals of my state. Those who made huge cry for the freedom of expression of Perumal Murukan are now keeping a strange silence against this blatant injustice. It is sad that you are sandwiched in between autocracy and hypocrisy in a land you choose to live and talk.”