Jury distressed over flick on Arvind Kejriwal
NEW DELHI: The just-ended national film awards season signed off under a cloud, after disgruntled jury members expressed their displeasure over ‘An Insignificant Man’, a documentary on Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal not making it even to the list of films eligible for the awards.
Official sources said that the seven-member jury, headed by Nakul Kamte, who is also known for his work on ‘Lagaan’ and ‘Rang De Basanti, had conflicting views on the documentary, with at least four jurists praising the political documentary and wanting it to be rewarded
Assamese filmmaker Bhaskar Hazarika, Malayalam artist Christo Tomy, filmmakers RV Ramani and Ranjit Ray, cultural activist Aradhana Pradhan and writer Maneesha Kulshreshta were part of the jury. According to sources, only Pradhan and Kulshreshta strongly objected to the film getting rewarded.
Those in the know of the matter said it was constant pressure from the ministry that prevented the documentary from being even discussed as part of deliberations that happened on the last day before the process ended, as it would have caused embarrassment to the government if the movie on Kejriwal, a bitter critic of the Modi government, had made it to the winners’ list.
The jury finally decided not to present “best film in non feature” category for this year.
According to a jury member, the panel had finished watching over 150 movies between April 1 and April 9, and on the ninth day, a day before the deliberations began, they were told that An Insignificant Man cannot be considered for any award, not even a special mention, and that because of technical reasons and lack ot clarity over its agreement with NFDC, it should not have been screened at all.
The panel had however already watched the movie on the third day of the screenings.
“We felt it was a nicely made film that showed the vulnerabilities of a common man getting into politics. We were also told the ministry had the power to veto any film selected by the jury so we couldn’t do anything about it,” a member of the jury said, adding that the panel had also approached members of Directorate of Film Festivals (DFF) with regard to this, but there was no response
The ministry then had conducted a thorough enquiry into how the movie even made it to the screening and why it was shown to the jury. It is believed that the C Senthil Rajan, director of Directorate of Film Festivals (DFF) was repatriated to his parent cadre Indian Information Services and put on a ‘compulsory wait’ after this dispute. Senthil Rajan was the official in charge of facilitating the selection process.
Directed by Khushboo Ranka and Vinay Shukla, An Insignificant Man documents the life of Arvind Kejriwal, Delhi CM and founder of India’s Aam Aadmi party, during his election campaign in late 2012.
The Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) had refused to clear the documentary and had asked the filmmakers to obtain a ‘no objection certificate’ (NOC) from Prime Minister Narendra Modi, former Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dixit and Kejriwal himself for the film to be certified for release. The filmmakers were also asked to beep out the names of politicians in Congress and BJP. However, Film Certification Tribunal (FCAT) had later cleared it.
The 65th National Film Awards were held at the Vigyan Bhavan in New Delhi on May 3. The ceremony got marred by controversy after it was announced that President Ram Nath Kovind will not be giving away awards to all the 140 winners but the selection of winners was welcomed, as it had a good mix of Malayalam, Marathi, Bengali and Assamese films, and also films made in languages such as Tulu, Jasari and Ladakhi.
