The Kashmir Files: Three additional jury members of the International Film Festival of India (IFFI), Goa, have come out in favour of Israeli filmmaker Nadav Lapid, whose statements labelling “The Kashmir Files” as “vulgar” and “propaganda” sparked a dispute. According to a statement made on Twitter by Jinko Gotoh, Pascale Chavance, and Javier Angulo Barturen in their respective capacities as undersigners, the entire jury was aware of and supportive of what Mr. Lapid said in his capacity as jury leader.
What Nadav lapid said
Lapid, who was the head of International Competition of the recently-concluded International Film Festival of India (IFFI), Goa, says: “When I am on the jury (of a film festival), I try not to read the catalogue beforehand. When I watched The Kashmir Files (2022), I knew it was an Indian entry. That’s more or less the only thing I knew about it. However, while watching it, I found the movie to be a cheap, vulgar, and propaganda movie. I am not against controversial movies. I like the idea when movies go to the extreme. I am not against the level of violence in The Kashmir Files. However, it annoyed me that the movie doesn’t have any inner contradictions, complexities. It is totally flat.
What Fellow Jurors said
Nadav Lapid’s sentiments were echoed by fellow Jurors who put out a joint statement supporting him.
“At the festival’s closing ceremony, Nadav Lapid, the jury’s president, made a statement on behalf of the jury members stating: ‘We were all of disturbed and shocked by the 15th film, The Kashmir Files, that felt to us like a vulgar propaganda movie, inappropriate for an artistic competitive section of such a prestigious film festival.’ We stand by his statement,” it read.
“And to clarify, we were not taking a political stance on the film’s content, we were making an artistic statement, and it saddens us greatly to see the festival platform being used for politics and subsequent personal attacks on Nadav. That was never the intention of the jury,” it added.
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