- Courtesy: Deccan Chronicle
Filmmaker
Adoor Gopalakrishnan has in a searing criticism of the national film awards
selection under the new dispensation called for a probe against the jury
chairman (Rajendra Singh Babu), who presided over the selection of the Indian
Panorama at IFFI 2016. In a nine-point letter to Information and Broadcasting
Secretary Ajay Mittal, Mr Gopalakrishnan lamented the plight of “the cinema
movement of purpose and integrity”.
He
was also vehemently critical of the Ramesh Sippy-led jury that selected the
national awards for 2015, heavily biased in favour of commercial cinema. Mr
Gopalakrishnan withheld names of the two chief jurors in the letter but did not
conceal his outrage since “never before have such jokers been appointed as jury
chairmen”.
Reflecting
sentiments of the film fraternity pursuing “purposeful cinema”, Mr
Gopalakrishnan said that soon there would be an occasion to choose members as
well as a chairman to the National film awards jury. “We insist that the jury
should be headed by a filmmaker of eminence, familiar with modern trends in
cinema and enjoys a national stature and he and other members on the jury would
instill a feeling of fairness in the minds of the professionals involved”, said
Mr Gopalakrishnan.
