Noted filmmaker Adoor Gopalakrishnan has come out strongly against the jury members chosen to head this year's national film awards.
He has written to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting urging it to ensure that the jury to select this year's national award is headed by a filmmaker of eminence who is familiar with modern trends in cinema and who enjoys a national stature.
In his letter, he urged the Centre to treat the selection of jury chairman and members seriously and stop an incompetent jury from sitting in judgement.
"The national film awards were conceived as a means to select and award films for their thematic relevance, social commitment, original approach, technical excellence and above all aesthetic brilliance. Unfortunately, when the national awards of 2015 were announced all major awards including best film, and director went to outright commercial movies, undermining the very purpose of which the awards were instituted," said Gopalakrishnan in his letter.
He said same was the situation during the selection of films to Indian Panorama of IFFI 2016.
"Anything genuine, original and artistic were rejected with a vengeance. Starting with the chairman of the jury it was the most unlikely group of people who sat in judgment of our films some of which had already been shown in major international film festivals. And you come home with laurels from abroad to find that you have been rejected by an incompetent, ill-equipped jury in your own festival. Shame!," said Gopalakrishnan.
He further complained that the person chosen to head national film awards is neither a filmmaker of any repute, nor one who has made a successful commercial film in his career.
"His appointment as the chair of the jury is a matter of great concern for all of us who are in this profession for about half a century. Never before have such jokers been appointed as jury chairman," said the filmmaker.
He bemoaned the fact that the entire exercise was done very 'casually without realizing how deeply it would demoralise the genuine and committed practitioners in the profession'.
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