The past few days haven’t been of peace and bliss for filmmaker Sudipto Sen, whose upcoming film ‘The Kerala Story’ is under massive scrutiny by the Kerala State government, ever since its trailer was revealed on social media, last week.
Following severe backlash by both the ruling and the opposition parties, recent developments now suggest that the film has about 10 scenes omitted and will be released with an ‘A’ certificate. Apart from that, the statistic ‘32000 women’, that was the cause of much contention from all quarters, is now being depicted in the film as ‘3’.
Team Free Press Journal spoke to Sen to gauge his thoughts and understand the makers’ intent behind telling this subject.
Many are calling out the film for its depiction of a certain sect or religion. Your take?
Sen: The tragedy is, we are being told that terror does not have any religion. But, in Kerala, when we talk about terrorism, when we talk about what is being perpetrated to the girls, people stand by to say ‘ban this because they are Islamophobic. So, whenever we’ve started talking about the terrorist, they bring up a particular religion, so they associate.There are debates going on whether to ban it or not. And at the same time, the amount of euphoria among the people to watch the film, you won't believe that with every passing hour, our distributors are increasing the number of prints.
Why was this a story you wanted to tell?
Sen: In 2014, there was an incident when a 19-year old girl was converted in a manipulative way. And then within six months, she was reconverted and her house was burnt. So since I started doing the research on the subject, every passing day, I used to get new information, news stories, so I traveled across the state. I tried to figure out the link. And after 4 years, I realize it's not strange events related to only love jihad you know or only conversion. It's a deep rooted conspiracy hatched against the country.
The point of contention is the figure being quoted in the film. Where has that number been derived from?
Sen: We have the account of 32,000, we have the account of 50,000. We asked through RTI to the Kerala government, that tell us whether we are wrong, then what is the truth? They did not say anything. They have replied, but it was such a confusing answer, there is no answer.
How do you counter the claims of 'The Kerala Story' being an ‘agenda-driven’ film?
Sen: I have only one agenda, to tell the truth about the girls. So, I will stick to my agenda to expose the perpetrators and try to bring them to justice. In spite of that, if you have questions, you have to see the film. Then you decide whether it is an agenda driven film or a political film. To me. It's a human saga. That's it.
