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The Kashmir Files row: Shiv Sena MP reacts to Israel envoy's ‘should see my DM’ tweet
'The Kashmir Files' was screened on November 22 as a part of the Indian Panorama Section at 53rd International Film Festival of India.
Israel ambassador to India Naor Gilon's scathing attack on compatriot filmmaker Nadav Lapid for calling The Kashmir Files film “propaganda” has triggered another controversy as he sounded alarm about the “implications it may have on the team under my responsibility.” In an “open letter” to the filmmaker, the envoy said that Lapid will go back to Israel thinking he is “bold and made a statement” but he should “see our DM boxes” following his statement.
“You will go back to Israel thinking that you are bold and “made a statement”. We, the representatives of Israel, would stay here. You should see our DM boxes following your “bravery” and what implications it may have on the team under my responsibility,” Gilon said in a series of tweets.
Reacting to the envoy's remark, Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Priyanka Chaturvedi said it was unfortunate if the Israeli ambassador and his team were being flooded with messages against the remarks made by the filmmaker who headed the jury at the 53rd International Film Festival of India (IFFI).
“It is obvious for anyone to understand that Nadav Lapid at no point denied the Kashmiri Pandit exodus or dismissed it,” the Rajya Sabha member wrote, adding the comments were about the “way the film treated the subject" and “made it a propaganda film”.
"[H]e spoke of the discomfort of the other jury members too,” she tweeted.
Speaking at the closing ceremony of IFFI 2022, Lapid said the jury was "disturbed and shocked" by the film and deemed it “inappropriate for an artistic competitive section of such a prestigious film festival.” His comment, in presence of Union minister Anurag Thakur, was seen by many as an embarrassment for the government, more because ‘The Kashmir Files’ had received a raving endorsement from Prime Minister Narendra Modi in March this year.
Accusing the filmmaker of abusing the Indian invitation to chair the IFFI jury, the Israeli envoy said that Lapid should be ashamed of his comment as it is “insensitive and presumptuous to speak about historic events before deeply studying them and which are an open wound in India.”
