Jury chairman and Israeli director Nadav Lapid objected to the inclusion of ‘Kashmir Files’ in the 53rd Goa Film Festival. He made a public criticism at the closing session of the fair. There were 15 films in the competition in the international category. He said that after seeing Kashmir Files, he was disturbed and surprised and felt it was a ‘propaganda and vulgar’ film.
In the words of Nadav Lapid: ‘There were 15 films in the international film category. Of these there were 14 films of excellent quality and full of cinematic value. It led to quite a bit of discussion. But it was the 15th film that shocked us all – The Kashmir Files. We felt it was a vulgar propaganda film. It felt like a raw film out of place in the competition section of such a prestigious film festival. He added that he has no difficulty in saying this publicly and that it needs to be evaluated critically.
‘Propaganda, Vulgar film’; Head of IFFI jury on kashmir files
