“These Are Stalling Tactics,” Sanal Sasidharan On The IFFI Jury Viewing His Film On Monday

The International  Film Festival  Of India (IFFI) has been instructed by the honourable Kerala High Court to screen Sanal Sasidharan’s  controversial Malayalam film S Durga.The process  of screening  the  film seems to be moving ahead,what  with  the IFFI jury resolving to view the  film  on Monday evening.

However Sasidharan  is  not convinced  of  the  IFFI’s  intentions  of  screening the  film.

“The  jury is supposed to watch my film on Monday evening. Only after that would a decision be taken on when it will be screened at IFFI. These seem like stalling tactics to me. I mean, the jury will watch  the  film on Monday evening. They will then come to their decision. The number of days left for the Festival is rapidly  shrinking,” says  Sasidharan.

 However he sees  a silver   lining.  “At  best,my film gets  to be finally screened at the IFFI.I’d see that as a big victory for independent cinema in India. At  worst, whatever the  IFFI does with my film  it now has a  much larger audience  waiting to see  it when it is released  commercially. For that I must thank the I  & B ministry and the IFFI organizers.”

Ravi Jadhav whose Marathi film Nude was also ousted  from the IFFI was  not able to join Sanal Sasidharan  in the  fight against  arbitrary governmental  intervention in the screening   process.

“Ravi must have had  his constraints and decided against wasting his time in the legal process. I must say it has so  far been a pretty frustrating fight for me,” admits Sasidharan.