Activist urges Majid Majidi to pull out from International Film Festival of India

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A film society activist in the state, T. P. Ramakrishnan, has written to Iranian filmmaker Majid Majidi urging him to pull out his film, Beyond the Clouds, from the IFFI as a show of dissent against the Centre's move to keep out two films - Sanal Kumar Sasidharan's S Durga and Ravi Jadhav's Nude - from the IFFI. Beyond the Clouds is the inaugural film of IFFI, which begins on November 20.

Mr Ramakrishnan, in his missive to Majidi, said that the removal of the two films against norms reflected the intolerance of the powers that be to certain ideas and ways of living. "It has been quite a while since the politics of hate of a certain section of people who have no qualms about silencing, or even exterminating, contrarian voices has been put into practice in the country," the letter said. He said it was the continuation of the gunning down of intellectuals and journalists like Dabholkar, Pansare, Kalburgi and Gauri Lankesh, and the beating to death of those belonging to a particular community alleging they were in possession of cow's meat.

"You had spoken in glowing terms about the idea of India. If we are to preserve this land just the way you had thought of it, we will have to stymie the designs of these power-crazy forces. Your dissent will give our efforts a big push," Mr Ramakrishnan said. He cited the example of Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismaki who boycotted the New York Film Festival in protest against the US Government's decision to deny visa to attend the festival.

He also reminded Mr Majidi of the Iranian filmmaker Bahman Ghobadi who had rejected the Chicago festival award when he was denied a visa. "If not for all these, consider that you yourself had pulled out The Willow Tree from Denmark's biggest film festival, the Natfilm Festival, in protest against the publication of cartoons demeaning Prophet Muhammed in a Denmark Paper," the letter said.