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Actor Naseeruddin Shah finds the popularity of “jingoistic” films like The Kashmir Files, The Kerala Story and Gadar 2 “harmful”. He also feels filmmakers are made to make movies which bring down “other communities” unnecessarily. In a new interview, the veteran actor expressed concern over the popularity of these films over the movies made by directors like Hansal Mehta, Anubhav Sinha and Sudhir Mishra.
While speaking to Free Press Journal, Naseeruddin was asked if the objective of filmmaking in Bollywood has changed. He responded, “Now the more jingoist you are, the more popular you become, because this is what has been ruling this country. It’s not enough to love your country but beat drums about it and you have to create imaginary enemies.”
Naseeruddin Shah pointed out that filmmakers who are making these jingoistic films are not realising “what they are doing is very harmful”. He added, “In fact, films like Kerala Story and Gadar 2, I haven’t seen them but I know what they are about. It’s disturbing that films like Kashmir Files are so massively popular whereas movies made by Sudhir Mishra, Anubhav Sinha, and Hansal Mehta, who are trying to portray the truth of their times don’t get seen.”
The Kerala Story follows the story of a group of women from Kerala who are converted to Islam (through force or deceit) and go on to join the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The Kashmir Files is centred around the exodus of Kashmiri Pundits from the valley and the recently released Gadar 2 is a story of a father and son’s escape from Pakistan after being held captive by an army general. All three films have minted moolah at the box office.
However, Naseeruddin suggested that filmmakers like Anubhav Sinha, Hansal Mehta and Sudhir Mishra should not give up, even if a lesser number of people watch their films today.
He said, “But it’s important that these filmmakers don’t lose heart and continue telling stories. They will be responsible for posterity. A hundred years later people will see Bheed and they will also see Gadar 2 and see which one portrays the truth of our times because film is the only medium which could do that.”
Calling the current scenario “frightening”, Naseeruddin Shah concluded, “It’s hard to resort to abstraction and capture life as it is. So regressive is a pretty mild word for what’s going on. It’s frightening when filmmakers are being coopted into making films which praise all the wrong things and run down other communities for no reason at all. It’s a dangerous trend.”
The actor recently took the director’s chair for a short film Man Woman Man Woman, which is headlined by Ratna Pathak Shah, Vivaan Shah, Tarun Dhanrajgir and Saba Azad.
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