‘The Great Wall of Shame’ — that’s the catch phrase for a Twitter campaign that started on Monday to boycott the films Aladin, Gair, Canvas and London Dreams.
The reason? The posters of the four films disfigured the artwork painted on the wall opposite Phoenix Mills, Lower Parel, as part
of The Wall Project.
The wall was painted on Sunday in the second phase of the street art movement organised in collaboration with the municipal corporation.
The Internet became the medium for Mumbaiites to voice their outrage. First, a hash tag called ‘Wallproject’ was floated on Twitter. Asfaq Tapia (25), its initiator, spread word about the incident to chalk out an action plan. Photographer Raju Shukla mailed pictures of the defaced wall to Tapia.
“I followed the hash tag up with a blog post that was an open letter to the producers of the movies, requesting them to educate the promotion companies about the Wall Project and remove the posters if possible. Actor Riteish Deshmukh and director Sujoy Ghosh responded and ensured the posters were removed,” said Tapia.
But that didn’t end matters. “Deshmukh did act on our request, but he only took off posters of his film,” said Shrushti Rao (29), a graffiti artist who painted a section of the wall.
“We plan to draft an online petition and email it to the BMC and the Indian Motion Pictures Association,” said Netra Parikh (43), a member of Wall Project.