Two delegates from Kerala were detained at the Panaji police station for an hour on Monday, November 27, allegedly for peacefully protesting against the screening of Sudipto Sen’s controversial film The Kerala Story at the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in Goa. The film, which released on May 5 this year, has been accused of peddling misinformation and unleashing targeted propaganda against Muslims.
The protesting delegates — Archana Ravi, an illustrator by profession, and Sreenath, a documentary filmmaker — had carried with them copies of memes mocking The Kerala Story and ‘fact kits’ containing data debunking several claims made in the movie. They also distributed the memes among other delegates as a red carpet interview of Sudipto Sen was underway. The meme featured the popular template of an awkward puppet monkey with the caption “Sudipto Sen: The Kerala Story, Source: Trust me bro!” Much of the data cited in the film and its promotional videos have already been fact checked and proven to be either completely wrong or largely exaggerated.
Sreenath took to X (Twitter) around 6.30 pm on Monday to share the duo’s experience, stating that they had marked their dissent against the screening of the film at IFFI because it was a propaganda movie. “We were detained by the Goan police, and they took away our IFFI delegate pass banning us from the festival,” he said.
The delegates also posted an Instagram live explaining how Sudipto, the film’s director, had initiated a verbal argument with them after noticing their peaceful protest, following which the police intervened and took them to the station. Their IFFI delegate passes were also taken away, allegedly after Sudipto asked the organisers to do so. “I am really worried about a police state. Taking away our right to dissent is evidence that this is turning into a police state,” Archana said in the video. She added that she wanted people to be informed of the incident in the event of a fake case being filed against her or Sreenath.
“The police were saying you shouldn’t do this because you are spreading hate. But actually we are resisting hate. The Kerala Story is a propaganda film against the people of Kerala and we cannot let it pass. We are standing for the people of Kerala, the minorities, and for films,” Sreenath said. He also recalled how the controversial Vivek Agnihotri film The Kashmir Files was screened at IFFI last year, following which Israeli filmmaker Nadav Lapid who headed the jury panel referred to it as “vulgar” and a “propaganda movie”. “We have the same thing to say about The Kerala Story, it’s a vulgar propaganda film,” he added.
Watch No Filter with Dhanya Rajendran: The truth about The Kerala Story
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