Exclusive: 'Indians are used to seeing third-grade love stories': The Kashmir Files director Vivek Agnihotri takes a dig at Shikara

The Kashmir Files has released in theatres and is receiving tremendous response. A year back, Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s Shikara also released in theatres. Both the movies have a similar backdrop – the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits. However, while The Kashmir Files focuses on the exodus, Shikara had an element of a love story too.

We at OTTplay asked The Kashmir Files helmer Vivek Agnihotri if it would be right to say they are the same subject with a different execution. He went on to point out how the two movies are different from one another.

Vivek started off by accusing team Shikara of attacking him and his silence on the matter. He said, “I haven’t spoken about Shikara even once. The team of Shikara was attacking when their film was releasing but I didn’t utter a word. You can check my entire social media history – I have never spoken about anybody else’s films and am concerned only about my film. Yes, sometimes, very rarely, when I see young actors and find them really impressive, I write about them. That is also when I see that nobody is writing about them even when they are talented and their performances go unnoticed. I never interfere in Bollywood’s situations but I have mentally resigned from it.”

Talking about the two films, he added, “As far as Shikara is concerned, initially it was titled Shikara – Love Letters From Kashmir. It was always a love story. It had nothing to do with Kashmiri exodus or Kashmiri genocide. When I started doing research on Kashmir and a lot of Kashmiri Pandit communities started talking about our research. At that time, I announced my film and there was viral stuff on that. A few weeks before the release of the film, they realized that the audiences are more interested in the genocide and not the love story. It is then that they changed the name of the film and called it Shikara – The Untold Story of Kashmiri Pandits. Both the posters are available on the internet. You can check them. The original poster is called love letters. They definitely changed their decision and there are reasons to believe they did that after The Kashmir Files announcement. I was doing a different film so there’s no competition.”

Taking a dig at the filmmaker and his wife, Vivek added, “Vidhu Vinod Chopra and Anupama Chopra are king and queen of the industry. They are big people. Look at me – I’m a very simple man. I’m making my own movie because I love making these movies. I have nothing to do with Bollywood or stars.”

Stating that he is further away from the glamour that comes with Bollywood, Vivek mentioned, “I challenge you – you’ll never find me and Pallavi (Joshi, Vivek’s wife and The Kashmir Files actress) in any party. We don’t go to trials and premieres even when we are invited by friends. We are no Bollywood fans. Just because I make films doesn’t mean I have to follow the rules of Bollywood.”

The filmmaker further spoke about Shikara and Vidhu Vinod Chopra and stated, “When their film was releasing, there was a lot of criticism. A lot of Kashmiri Pandits abused the film. One girl cried her heart out. She told Vidhu Vinod Chopra ‘we disown your film’ on his face. In response, he said ‘yeh sab gadhe hai.’ Then he said, “It doesn’t matter. Hug it out, say sorry and move on.” That’s where they made the blunder, by saying those things. I didn’t say that. The blunder was him saying that the mothers who have been raped or the fathers who have been cut to pieces, all the victims should go, shake hands, hug them and apologize. Who’s supposed to say I’m sorry? The perpetrator or the victim? He’s giving advice to victims that they should apologize. That’s why the Kashmiri Hindu community went against him and not only them, everybody in India were against him.”

Stating that Indians are ‘used to seeing third-grade love stories’, the filmmaker pointed out, “If they had promoted their film like a love story, who would have questioned it and why? Indians are used to seeing third grade love stories so they will tolerate it. However, the people involved in the team unnecessarily started writing bad things about me. One of their writers started saying I’m a p**n filmmaker. I haven’t made a p**nography film. Why are you saying that?”

Vivek claims that Vidhu’s team attacked him further during The Kashmir Files release. He shared, “Then they started attacking my wife who has nothing to do with the stupid politics of Vidhu Vinod Chopra. That’s his karma. He has to deal with it. Why should I be targetted? They started attacking me but I never uttered a word. I didn’t speak about it but their attacks continued and it had become more around The Kashmir Files release.”

The Kashmir Files helmer added that people started trolling Vidhu for Shikara and claimed that he wasn’t making it happen. “People are not idiots. They see and understand what is happening. They started trolling Vidhu Vinod Chopra and he thought I was making it happen. This is their IQ and understanding about India and their own audiences. They thought their audiences are idiots and dumb and with their marketing hype, they can promote anything,” Vivek said.

He then took a dig at Anupama Chopra and said, “The second big mistake that Shikara team made is Anupama Chopra, whose only qualification is that she’s the wife of a Kashmiri Hindu filmmaker, therefore she started Film Companion. She has no background in this field. Somebody brought it to my notice that her website put up The Tashkent Files review and used The Kashmir Files because it’s a keyword.”

The filmmaker accused the website of trying to sabotage his film. He shared, “The review also says that The Tashkent Files is a third-grade film. A film that ran for 100 days, I challenge anybody to go on the stage and ask if they have seen The Tashkent Files and they’ll start crying stating they haven’t seen such an honest and truthful film.”

Calling it vicious and sinister, he added, “It's been accepted by IIM Ahmedabad officially in their curriculum, Harvard has accepted it as a case study and it won two National Awards. It was a sleeper hit that made money for the producer, distributor and everyone associated with the film. You can call it third grade – that’s your choice, I’m not stopping you but at least don’t use that review to sabotage The Kashmir Files. That I feel is very vicious and sinister.”

“That’s when I said, I’m on a lone journey and I’m fighting that if I can create a film like The Kashmir Files, I can definitely defend my baby also. They should also get the message that I’m not the kind who’s going to take this lined down. I’ll fight for my creation and for one million Kashmiri Pandits,” he signed off.