{"id":11349,"date":"2022-12-31T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-12-31T05:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.zaanews.in\/?p=11349"},"modified":"2022-12-05T14:52:12","modified_gmt":"2022-12-05T09:22:12","slug":"nadav-lapidiffi-jury-head-saysmovie-kashmir-files-totally-flat-doesnt-have-any-inner-contradictions-and-complexities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zaanews.in\/index.php\/2022\/12\/31\/nadav-lapidiffi-jury-head-saysmovie-kashmir-files-totally-flat-doesnt-have-any-inner-contradictions-and-complexities\/","title":{"rendered":"Nadav Lapid,IFFI jury head says,Movie Kashmir Files totally flat, doesn\u2019t have any inner contradictions and complexities"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Paris-based writer-director Nadav Lapi<\/strong>d, by his own admission, has \u201cthe habit of watching movies in a proper and un-influenced way\u201d. Lapid, who was the head of International Competition of the recently-concluded International Film Festival of India (IFFI), Goa, told The Indian Express<\/em>: \u201cWhen 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\u2019s 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\u2019t have any inner contradictions, complexities. It is totally flat.\u201dPrior to his Goa visit, Lapid, an internationally acclaimed Israeli writer and director, had as much idea about the protracted Kashmir conflict as \u201cpeople who are curious and have a certain knowledge about what\u2019s happening all around would usually have\u201d. Though before coming to Goa as the IFFI jury head he has \u201cread a little bit about India\u201d and its political situations, he is quick to clarify that he \u201cnot an expert or even half an expert\u201d of India. After watching The Kashmir Files, he believed that he must voice his opinion even though he was aware \u201cthe movie has many supporters\u201d.\u201cBy nature I am not an impulsive person. I had a feeling that something should be said about it (The Kashmir Files). Other jury members too shared the same feeling.\u201d During the IFFI closing ceremony on Monday evening, however, Lapid spoke alone as he presented the jury report. He said: \u201cWe (members of the jury) were, all of us, disturbed and shocked by \u2018The Kashmir Files\u2019. That felt to us like a propaganda, vulgar movie, inappropriate for an artistic competitive section of such a prestigious film festival.\u201dWhen asked about the statement made by fellow jury member Sudipto Sen, a Mumbai-based filmmaker, that what Lapid said during the closing ceremony was \u201chis personal view\u201d, the Israeli filmmaker said: \u201cOther jury members too felt it was a propaganda film. All the jury members were going to talk about it on stage and we discussed that.\u201d He made it clear that he does not hold it against any jury member for the stand they have taken. \u201cIn these kinds of situations, people behave in different ways. I don\u2019t want to judge them. I am not in that place,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ending speculation regarding the opinion of other members of the competition jury, Lapid\u2019s fellow juror and BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) winner Jinko Gotoh, tweeted in his support on Saturday. The statement issued by her and two jurors, film critic and journalist from France Javier Angulo Barturen and French film editor Pascale Chavance, said that they stand by the statement made by Lapid about the \u2018The Kashmir Files\u2019. \u201cWe stand by his statement. And to clarify we were not taking a political stance on the film\u2019s 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,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Usually, the jury does not talk about a film that\u2019s not selected for an award and Lapid doesn\u2019t dispute that. He says: \u201cBasically, the jury does not do that. They are supposed to watch movies, savour them, talk about their merits and select winners. But then basically movies like The Kashmir Files<\/strong> shouldn\u2019t be part of the competition section at film festivals. I have been part of the jury in dozens of festivals, including the international ones held in Berlin, Cannes, Locarno and Venice . Never ever have I watched a movie like The Kashmir Files at these festivals.\u201d He strongly believes that a movie like this should not have been selected for the International Competition section \u2014 which he described as \u201cthe front window\u201d of a film festival. \u201cWhen you show a movie like this to the jury, you force them to behave differently (than usual),\u201d he said.When asked if Lapid is surprised by the kind of reaction his statement has triggered, he said that being a \u201cforeigner\u201d he doesn\u2019t have much clue about such things. He, however, added that he likes discussions. \u201cI like their emotional discussions. People get emotional while talking about movies.\u201d After leaving India, he initially didn\u2019t want to interact with the media and discuss the matter. He didn\u2019t respond to messages. He changed his mind after he realised that his statement was being \u201cmanipulated\u201d and it was projected that he \u201cignored the tragedy\u201d of Kashmiri Pandits. Released on March 11 this year, \u201cThe Kashmir Files\u201d, directed by Vivek Agnihotri, ran to packed halls across the country but was panned by critics. The film, which was declared tax-free, is based on the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits in the Valley in the 1990s.Lapid\u2019s IFFI statement might have sparked a major debate but he is no stranger to controversy. In his films, he has never shied from pointing out the fault lines in Israeli society and questioning the government. His feature Synonyms (2019), based on his own experiences, is about a young Israeli moving to Paris to start a new life and trying to escape his identity. Synonyms was the winner of the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2019 and the FIPRESCI Award (Competition). Ahed\u2019s Knee (2021), which received jury prize at the Cannes Film Festival last year, critiques the Israeli government\u2019s culture policy and censorship. \u201cMy films are polemic and controversial. The reactions are polarised, harsh. It ranges from fascination and enthusiasm to fury and hate,\u201d he says.The Tel Aviv-born filmmaker does agree that the artistic community in many parts of the world is facing restrictions. This, he believes, makes them face a tough choice \u2014 whether \u201cthey should keep on expressing inner truth\u201d or be \u201cspokesperson of those in power\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Paris-based writer-director Nadav Lapid, by his own admission, has \u201cthe habit of watching movies in a proper and un-influenced way\u201d. Lapid, who was the head of International Competition of the recently-concluded International Film Festival of India (IFFI), Goa, told The Indian Express: \u201cWhen I am on the jury (of a film festival), I try not to read …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11351,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[82,83,88,87],"class_list":["post-11349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment-news","tag-bollywood","tag-bollywood-actress","tag-famous","tag-model"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zaanews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11349"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zaanews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zaanews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zaanews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zaanews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11349"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.zaanews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11349\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11353,"href":"https:\/\/www.zaanews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11349\/revisions\/11353"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zaanews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zaanews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zaanews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zaanews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}