Israeli director Nadav Lapid has been at the center of a controversy after describing Vivek Agnihotri's film 'The Kashmir Files as a ‘vulgar’ piece of propaganda in his closing remarks at the recently concluded 53rd International Film Festival of India (IFFI). Nadav Lapid was serving as the president of the jury at the prestigious event.
Now, in an interview with CNN-News18, he has apologized for inadvertently offending the sentiments of any community, and said that he ‘didn’t want to insult anyone, or their relatives, who have suffered.’
In an interview with Haaretz, the filmmaker said that he discovered that 'The Kashmir Files' was included in the competition lineup at the festival due to ‘political pressure’, and felt that it was his ‘duty’ to speak out against it.
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“We learned that the film was pushed into the official competition of the festival, which is the largest in India, due to political pressure. So I feel that precisely as a foreigner who goes there, you have an obligation to say the things that the people who live there may have a harder time saying," he said.
In a tweet on Thursday morning, The Kashmir Files director Vivek Agnihotri wrote, “People do and say things to hurt you because somewhere they are unhappy that you have got what they desired. That’s why they want to destroy you. Letting such people hurt you is not just cowardice but self-destruction.”
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Nadav Lapid claimed to have proof that his fellow jury members were also in agreement with what he said, although filmmaker Sudipto Sen has said that Lapid acted on his own.
Said Nadav Lapid, “Making bad films is not a crime, but this is a very crude and very manipulative and very violent propaganda film.” Lapid admitted that he doesn’t know everything about the Kashmir conflict, he can recognize propaganda when he sees it. Citing the films of the Nazi propagandist Leni Reifenstahl, he added, “I promise you that if you had watched three random minutes of the film, the question would have been unnecessary.”
The Kashmir Files is based on the mass exodus of Kashmiri Hindus from the Valley in the 90s and has time and again been accused of inciting communal hate.
