Vivek Agnihotri claims West Bengal govt, police threatening theatres not to screen The Bengal Files, plans legal action

Vivek Agnihotri has said that he has been told his film The Bengal Files cannot release in West Bengal, and is seeking legal recourse for it.

Updated on: Sep 5, 2025, 07:58:02 IST

By Abhimanyu Mathur

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Filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri has said that the producers of his film, The Bengal Files, are planning to take legal action after claiming that the West Bengal government and police officials are threatening theatre owners not to screen his film in the state.

Vivek Agnihotri's The Bengal Files is slated to release this Friday.

Vivek on The Bengal Files release

The film revisits the communal riots of August 1946 in Kolkata (then Calcutta) known as the Direct Action Day. The divisive film has already seen its share of controversies with its trailer launch in the state capital being disrupted, and at least two Bengali actors distancing themselves from the film.

The Bengal Files is releasing this Friday. Ahead of the release, the filmmaker told reporters in Mumbai, “Whatever the West Bengal government is doing is illegal and unconstitutional. We are planning to file a writ petition, but will decide based on what happens tomorrow, and accordingly, we will take legal action.”

‘Theatre owners being threatened’

The filmmaker claimed that he is getting feedback from theatre owners in West Bengal that they were being threatened not to go ahead with the screening. “A lot of theatre owners, including the leading multiplex chains' officials, have said that the police have been threatening them of dire consequences if they release the film. They are like, ‘What will we do if they barge in and destroy our property?’” he said.

The filmmaker's wife and co-producer Pallavi Joshi, who also features in the film, has appealed to President Droupadi Murmu, seeking intervention in the matter. Agnihotri says the film has been dubbed in Bengali “because lakhs of Bengali people want to watch it.”

About The Bengal Files

The Bengal Files is the concluding chapter in Agnihotri’s The Files trilogy after The Tashkent Files (2019) and The Kashmir Files (2022). The film stars Mithun Chakraborty, Anupam Kher, Pallavi Joshi, Saswata Chatterjee and Darshan Kumarr.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Abhimanyu Mathur
Abhimanyu Mathur is Deputy Editor, Entertainment at Hindustan Times. With almost 15 years of experience in writing about everything from films and TV shows to cricket matches and elections, he inhales and exhales pop culture and news. Currently, he watches movies and TV shows and talks to celebrities for a living, while occasionally writing about them as well. A journalism graduate of Delhi College of Arts and Commerce, Delhi University, Abhimanyu began his career with Hindustan Times at the age of 20, swapping classrooms for newsrooms at an early age. He began his journey in the early days of digital journalism, later switching to the madness of print journalism. Work has led him to far off places like Japan and Jordan, as well as to the interiors of Haryana and the Indo-Pak border. He dabbled in city reporting in places like Meerut, Gurgaon, and Delhi, covered the Olympics and Cricket World Cups, before finding his calling in entertainment and lifestyle during the pandemic. A Rotten Tomatoes Certified Film Critic, he is equally at home covering stories on ground as he is interviewing celebrities and studios, and sometimes prefers to shepherd teams in delivering traffic through the day. Even as his role has evolved from reporter to supervisor over the years, his first love remains writing (and of late, talking on camera). With a good understanding of cinema and its trends, and a keen eye for detail, he continues to spark conversations around showbiz for readers around the world.Read More

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