Shotgun out of Patna film fest

Shatrughan Sinha is in for another royal snub in Bihar: the actor-turned-politician has not been invited to the maiden Patna Film Festival.

Shatrughan Sinha is in for another royal snub in Bihar: the actor-turned-politician has not been invited to the maiden Patna Film Festival.

HT Image

An incensed Sinha has accused the organisers of flagrantly politicising the event. “This so-called film festival has been hijacked politically,” Shatrughan told the Hindustan Times from Kolkata on Sunday. “And it is a shame that politics has been mixed into what should have been an out-and-out art and culture event.”

Patna's week-long maiden film festival, organised by the Bihar government in association with the union information and broadcasting ministry, National Film Development Corporation, directorate of film festival, National film Archives and Federation of Film Society of India, got under way amid much fanfare on Saturday.

Besides Shatrughan, Bihar's Shekhar Suman and Manoj Bajpai were also missing from the scene. Altogether 24 films, including Shwas, Maqbool, Hazaar Khwahishen Aisi and a host of foreign films are being screened at the festival, which has met with tremendous response.

Shatrughan, Bihar's first graduate from the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune, and the state's 'original' brand ambassador in Bollywood, stayed in Patna for two days prior to the start of the festival but the organisers did not bother to invite him.

“I have visited Patna twice over the last fortnight but I was neither informed nor invited nor consulted by the Bihar government on the festival,” he pointed out. “It is just like holding a film festival in Mumbai without involving the film industry.”