S Durga director Sasidharan comes down heavily on BJP govt after Apurva Asrani, Sujoy Ghosh quit IFFI jury

Sanal Kumar Sasidharan is all praises for jury team members Sujoy Ghosh and Apurva Asrani for fighting back against the BJP govt's decision to drop his movie S Durga from the list of Indian films to be screened at the International Film Festival of India (IFFI).

Sanal Kumar Sasidharan's Malayalam movie S Durga and Ravi Jadhav's Marathi film Nude had been selected earlier for IFFI's Indian Panorama section by the 13-member jury. Information and Broadcasting Ministry dropped these movies from the list, when it announced the final list last week. Some jury members were upset with the I&B ministry and criticise the decision.

Going a step ahead, Sujoy Ghosh resigned as the chairperson of the Indian Panorama jury of the IFFI . Apurva Asrani, another jury member, followed suit. Sanal Kumar took to Facebook to laud the 'fight back' of these jury members. In a detailed comment, the director also vent his anger on the I&B ministry.

Sanal Kumar Sasidharan wrote, "Whatever has come out now from the IFFI selection is only because of the boldness of some jury members. If they had not come out openly and the media took it up with ample weightage everything would have been very well covered up by the dictatorship." 

The resignation of the jury members are a real fight back, the director felt: "Jury chairman Sujoy Ghosh and one jury member Apurva Asrani has resigned. Another jury member Ruchi Narain has made open statement against the decision of the ministry. This is purely a fightback from them as artists. I know very well that, they did this with complete knowledge that the ruling party will use all the opportunity to harass them." 

Sanalkumar raised his apprehensions that the country is headed towards darkness: "As a film maker, I feel proud to live in a country where these people are also living and fighting. As a citizen I am feeling really sad and pessimistic about my country when I look around and see the cold response of the public at large. I really do not know, whether our society understands the evil it is going to face, if it live this ostrich life like this. I had lived in Saudi Arabia for one and half years and I know what is life without freedom. I had participated in hideout screenings conducted by Malayali associations. I fear that we are going in that direction and I can see darkness only. Please wake up.. please fight back.."

Meanwhile, Sanal Kumar has also filed a petition in the Kerala High Court against the I&B ministry. In his petition, the director stated that the ministry's decision was totally illegal and erroneous as it arbitrarily vetoed the IFFI jury's decision and dropped his film without notice and without assigning any reason.