NFDC FACES BACKLASH OVER IFFI SELECTION

The NFDC is the mother body that looks over four film media units - Films Division, Directorate of Film Festivals (DFF), National Film Archive of India (NFAI), and Children's Film Society of India (CFSI) after the Union Cabinet expanded the Memorandum of Articles of Association of NFDC in 2020. However, the merger came into effect in April 2022 due to the heavy controversy surrounding it. There were claims made by some of the prominent personalities of the Indian film industry that the effort is nothing but an attempt to privatise the film archives and government properties. There was a fear lingering between them that the merger would result in archives being damaged, destroyed and rewritten according to the government if they do not remain autonomous public institutions. While NFDC has many a time come under scrutiny due to film fraternities claiming it to be corrupt, more problems have risen now as the International Film Festival of India 2022 nears.

‘BEFORE I DIE’ 2022 SELECTION AFTER ITS 2020 REJECTION
There was a tough competition for selecting 25 films among the 354 entries and the jurors had a small time limit of a month to make their decision ready. Although this reason can be used as an excuse for excluding some great movies from the final list, it does not justify the inclusion of two movies from a single filmmaker. To top this chaos, the two films also include one that was rejected from the film festival in 2020. Filmmaker Sudipto Sen could be simply considered lucky if it hadn’t been for his film ‘Before I Die’ which was rejected in 2020. Two of his films, including the second named Gurujana, have been selected for the film festival whereas some of the most appreciated feature films such as Anik Dutta’s ‘Aparijito’ which was a tribute to Satyajit Ray’s ‘Pather Panchali’ have been dropped. Sudipto Sen’s production company Last Monk Media is responsible for co-producing both the films – Before I Die which is directed by Nakul Dev and Gurujana which is Sen’s directorial. Expressing his dismay, the producer of Aparijito, Firdausul Hasan had even written a letter to the I&B minister Anurag Thakur and secretary Apurva Chandra. He had mentioned that his film was even selected by the ministry to be screened at the Shanghai Film Festival where it won a Special Jury Award. It was also selected for the ministry’s special screening for Ray’s 100th birth anniversary. He mentioned that a film so good being rejected for the Indian Panorama of the IFFI “deprives cinegoers of a brilliant piece of artistic excellence that for which every Indian would be proud of”. However, despite the ministry asking for reconsideration, all the jury head of 12 members, Vinod Ganatra could say was, he felt “sorry”.

BRATYA BASU’S 2021 UNJUSTIFIED REJECTION
This is not the first time such an incident has occurred as the 2021 IFFI was laced with similar controversy when TMC minister, Bratya Basu claimed that his film ‘Dictionary’ was dropped after being selected for the IFFI. “I got multiple emails from IFFI officials congratulating me for my film's selection. However, I have come to know that they have dropped it now. It is due to political reasons,” he claimed. We approached Bratya Basu and the Managing Director of NFDC Ravinder Bhakar for their view and reaction to the controversy but did not get a response on time.

HEAVY SCRUTINY OVER SOUTH FILMS
While the film selections are a questionable decision, the root problem arises from the jurors themselves. The 12-jurymember team assembled for the selection of films at IFFI should be a diverse panel that represents the Indian cinema as a whole. However, this year, eight of the jury members from the panel of 12 are from the South Indian industry. Hence several have raised their concern over whether the inclusion of a variety of South films in the feature films category is the result of the juries’ bias. Although the south has come up with some of the most amazing films of 2022, there have been many that could have been ignored instead of being selected for the IFFI. This apparent bias has resulted in the rejection of various critically and internationally acclaimed films. Apart from Aparijito, Shiv Shashtri Balboa, a heartfelt film which received several international awards was also dropped from the final list of feature films. The NFDC’s questionable decisions surrounding the selection of films for a prestigious festival such as IFFI that has been held by the Indian government and the privatisation of the film archives have raised eyebrows in the film fraternity. Will this decision by the NFDC face the rightful consequences or will it be brushed under the carpet like several of its past controversies?