After AIB And Rajat Kapoor's Films, MAMI Now Drops Anurag Kashyap's Bebaak
Anurag Kashyap's co-produced film, Bebaak, has been dropped from the MAMI film festival. The director of the film, Shazia Iqbal has penned an open letter to the board members of the film festival
A short film,
co-produced by Anurag Kashyap titled Bebaak, has been dropped from the MAMI
Film Festival. Anurag, who was one of the Phantom members, was alleged
for his inaction in a sexual assault complaint against Vikas Bahl and
therefore the members of the film festival decided against running his
co-produced film in their festival. You may recall, in the wake of the
#MeToo movement, MAMI had dropped AIB and Rajat Kapoor's films too from
the festival, a few weeks back.
Bebaak stars
Sarah Hashmi, Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Vipin Sharma and explores the misogyny
faced by a Muslim woman during an interview for a scholarship. The 20-minute
long film was initially accepted in the film festival and was scheduled to run
from October 25 to November 1, but on October 15, the director Shazia Iqbal
learnt that Bebaak has been dropped from MAMI. Soon after, Shazia took to
social media and penned a detailed open letter to the board members.
My film was dropped by @MumbaiFilmFest because @anuragkashyap72 is my producer. This is an open letter to MAMI board members seeking answers for dropping my film and questioning their own integrity. https://t.co/g2Pqf8vEGk
— Shaz (@shazarch) October 20, 2018
Here are a few
extracts from her open letter:
Dear board
members at MAMI,
My name is Shazia
Iqbal. I am the writer-director of a short film titled Bebaak. Our film was
supposed to have its world premiere at the Mumbai Film Festival this year. It
is not going to anymore. The leadership at MAMI decided to drop the film.
Why? That is the
answer you owe my team and me.
I was not given
an official written statement from the board/committee members as to why my
film was dropped. This, in spite of me repeatedly asking for the same.
A few more attempts
on Whatsapp went unanswered.
Bebaak Poster
I was then told
by a member that this decision wasn’t fair to me but it was the final decision
of the board. And that it was not meant to be a punishment or judgement.
I appreciate the
empathy from Team MAMI but it changes nothing.
This is an open
legal case and I will say (based on) what there already is in the public domain
(and also include some of my personal knowledge), that Anurag did all that he
could at the time and unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to get the woman complete
justice because she did not want to make a formal complaint. (Sorry, I don’t
use the politically correct but demoralising word ‘victim’.) Anurag was a board
member of your Academy. He voluntarily stepped down from the board to keep
your reputation ‘clean’. Read her detailed letter here.
Image Source:instagram/anuragkashyap10 ,instagram/tanmaybhat & flipboard
