Over forty artistes of the Bengali film industry have decided to boycott the 13th Kolkata Film Festival being held in Kolkata right now. Rituparno Ghosh too has decided to boycott the Festival. Apparently, he and his mentor Aparna Sen took a joint decision to do so.
"No," Ritu clarifies. "Aparna Sen took a decision independent of me. After the government-sponsored genocide in Nandigram, I guess artistes and filmmakers had to abandon their frog-in-the-well attitude and stand up for what they think to be right and speak up against the wrong."
Ritu says, "I'm reacting emotionally, not politically, to the situation. Though I've been writing about the Nandigram issue in the editorial and columns of the magazine that I edit, I can't say as a rule I keep abreast of politics. But this issue goes beyond politics. It touches at the very core of the right and freedom of existence. I couldn't sleep if I turned a blind eye."
But what connection is there between the Nandigram episode and the Kolkata Film Festival? "Essentially it's the same government behind both the projects. If we allow one to go smoothly, the other also gets our tacit sanction. At a time when innocent people are being killed in Nandigram, attending a film festival seems trivial and insensitive," ends the emotional filmmaker.
Courtesy: IndiaFM
