Kerala Chronicle talks to the makers of the the films that were denied censor exemption to be screened at the IDSFFK.
Exactly a year ago, in the June of 2016, two young men shot a documentary in the Kashmir Valley, filled it with music and young voices, and called it In the Shade of Fallen Chinar. Shawn Sebastian and Fazil N.C. had returned to their lives, away from Kashmir, when a month later, all that short-lived peace was destroyed, with the killing of Burhan Wani, a young militant. They still kept their film the way it was, with its music and calm, hoping that peace will once again be restored in the Valley. Now, a year later, they hear from media reports that their optimism is not entirely shared by all — their film was denied censor exemption to be screened at the tenth edition of the International Documentary and Short Film Festival that begins in Thiruvananthapuram on Friday, June 16.
They are not alone. Two other films, also revolving around sensitive subjects — JNU protests (March, March, March) and Rohith Vemula's suicide (The Unbearable Being of Lightness), too face the same fate by an order of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.
"It has never happened before. We have given an appeal and are following it up, to reconsider the decision," says Bina Paul, vice-chairperson of Kerala Chalachithra Academy, organiser of the fest.
"No reason had been communicated. But if you read along the themes in these three films, maybe they deal with issues that put the government in defensive mode. These are issues that the government doesn't want people to see," says Shawn. "I think it is a dangerous precedent. If there are objections we are ready to face it in the film festival but let people watch and decide."
Shawn and Fazil had gone to the Valley to meet some friends they made at the Kochi Biennale, students at the Kashmir University. They stayed with a local NGO and went to the fallen Chinar - a tree - that artistes like to gather around, to talk and create. Conflict is a perfect place for art to thrive, says a musician in the film, while another says, "I've been affected to the extent that I can write a song about it and put my rage in that song. Till now all that anger was buried deep within. Now I want to get it out through my music." Shawn and Fazil have once screened a documentary called Radio Woman of Patara at the IDSFFK of 2015. That film, on a tribal woman using community radio as a tool of empowerment, had won them a UNESCO award in 2014.
The same time they were making their film in the Valley, Sanjay Kak's documentary Jashn-e-Azadi was screened at the ninth edition of the IDSFFK, a film on Kashmiri protests, as seen by Kashmiris. There were no questions asked then; the film was quietly screened, discussed. "We saw it in the same theatre, but now a relatively much more peaceful film is not allowed to be screened. It is most terrible, this trend, that anything against the government will not be allowed. It is a violation of constitutional rights, of freedom of expression," says K.R.
Manoj, a filmmaker who had made award winning documentaries like 16mm-Memories, Movement and a Machine. "They have not even seen the content, but only based on a list and synopsis, denied censor exemption." The censor exemption is a privilege that festivals get, he says, for these are films chosen after a careful preview by a committee.
Kathu Lukose is not overly surprised at her film on JNU protests — March, March, March being denied screening. "I just didn't expect it to happen after the film got selected," she says. Because nearly every film that is not allowed anywhere else in the country, finds a place in the international film festivals of Kerala. The trend is not new. For the last IFFK in December, 2016, two films were first not allowed screening, but one got through after a High Court order. "We are also thinking of going to the court," Kathu says. Her film was shot when she studied at the JNU, doing her MA in Arts & Aesthetics, covering the public meetings and with the interviews of Umar Khalid, Kanhaiya Kumar and Anirban Bhattacharya. IDSFFK would have been her first screening.
Veteran filmmaker P.N. Ramachandra too falls a victim, with his documentary The Unbearable Being of Lightness, too denied censor exemption. The film circles a workshop he conducted for a group of students at the University of Hyderabad after the student protests on the issue of Rohith Vemula's suicide. Such outright actions sometimes provoke the most peaceful among us. Shawn says they are approaching the Kerala High Court on Monday for an interim order enabling the film to be screened at the IDSFFK. But then again, there is also the side effect that those who forbid keep forgetting — it would always have more takers.
