Version imprimableBackground: Modi Government initially refused ‘censorship exemption’ for 19 films programmed and scheduled at #IFFK2025, but following the Kerala Government’s defiant decision to screen all films, later whittled the list down to 6. This time, the Kerala government accepted the Delhi diktat. The 6 ‘omitted’ films are:
Egypt: Clash (Mohamed Diab); Eagles of the Republic (Tarik Saleh)
Palestine: All that’s left of you (Cherien Dabis)
Israel: Yes (Nadav Lapid; Jury Chairman, IFFI 2023)
Colombia: A Poet (Simón Mesa Soto)
India: Lapatein/ Flames by debut filmmaker Ravi Shankar Kaushik.
Statement by Concerned Filmmakers and other Civil Society members:
When the BJP-led central government of India refused permission to the CPM-led Kerala government’s international film festival to screen 19 films which included Battleship Potemkin and several Palestinian films, that was no surprise. Intolerance and censorship has been the hallmark of Modi rule.
As international scorn poured in, what came as a breath of fresh air was an announcement from the Kerala government that it had taken a stand to show these films despite the objections of the centre. Those of us who have always opposed censorship at film festivals welcomed this defiance against a centrally imposed political and artistic diktat.
The centre immediately did damage control by unbanning 13 films including Battleship Potemkin but retaining the ban on 6 films including a couple of Palestinian-Israeli films.
What shocked and dismayed us is that the Kerala government backtracked its defiance by agreeing to this ban on 6 films. Resul Pookutty, the Oscar-winning artistic director of the Kerala festival made a shocking statement on camera. He did not even state that the centre had arm-twisted the Kerala festival into censorship. He instead justified the deed by resorting to the usual “anti-national” rhetoric that the BJP is famous for. He claimed that showing these films would jeopardise foreign policy and national security!
We the undersigned condemn this act of censorship by the Central government and the capitulation by the Kerala government.
Globally, film festivals are spaces free of censorship and it is both painful and shameful to see it exercised at IFFK.
Anand Patwardhan, Rakesh Sharma, Sanjiv Shah,
Kasturi Basu
Varun Grover
Amudhan RP
Surabhi Sharma
Pankaj Rishikumar
Joshy Joseph
Yousuf Saeed
Ziya ur Salaam
Anand Teltumbde
Nancy Adajania
Mridula Garg
Ranjan Palit
Vasudha Joshi
Anjali Monteiro
KP Jaishankar
Saba Dewan
PM Satheesh
L Sudha
Padmaja Francis
Kamal K M
Prateek vats
Shahrukhkhan Chavada
Ronny Sen
Subhadra Mahajan
Harshad Nalawade
Natesh Hegde
Indranil Roychowdhury
Krishand
Anuparna Roy
Akshay Indikar
Manjeet Singh
Bauddhayan Mukherji
Satyanshu Singh
Bhaskar Hazarika
Ashim Ahluwalia
Harsh Agarwal
Honey Trehan
Devashish Makhija
Kabir Singh Chowdhury
Fahad Mustafa
Vinod kamble
Rohan Kanawade
Karan Gour
Abhilash Shetty
Chhatrapal Ninawe
Aditya Kripalani
Jitendra Adappa
Shazia Iqbal
Diwa Shah of
Farha Khatun
Anshuman Jha
Kamil shaikh
Dibakar Das Roy
Sankhajit Biswas
Karan Tejpal
Mona Lisa Mukherji
Aditya Vikram Sengupta
Tanuja Chandra
Sudhanshu Saria
Rima Das
Sumit Purohit
Pushpendra Singh
Mudit Singhal
Praba Mahajan
Kabeer Khurana
Dakxin Chhara
M R Rajan
Madhu Ambat
Siddhant Adlakha
and many more.
