Aaliyah Kashyap reacts to Instagram user who criticised her for sharing fundraiser for friend Ida Ali’s film

Aaliyah’s earlier story had included a link to Ida’s fundraiser page for her senior thesis film Red. She wrote, “Hi everyone! My bestie/sister @idaali11 is fundraising for her senior thesis film! It would mean so much if you could contribute any amount.”

The synopsis for Red states, “A trusting girl peaks the interest of a stalker, leading him to an unexpected place.” Ida is studying film production at Dodge College which is part of Chapman University in California. She has directed the short films Boundary, Lift, and The Other Woman. She has also written the script for Amazon miniTV’s romantic drama Uljhe Hue starring Sanjana Sanghi and Abhay Verma.

After Aaliyah shared the details, an Instagram user replied to her story and stated, “The rich asking for money, lol. Irony here is that she’s Imtiaz Ali’s daughter. Your friend’s father has paid for film school. He can definitely produce the film also. Gosh, launching a fundraiser for this is ‘peak’ nincompoopery and privileged behaviour.”

Later, Aaliyah, who is daughter of filmmaker Anurag Kashyap and editor Aarti Bajaj, explained to the user that raising money through fundraisers was extremely common amongst film students. She said in another Instagram Story, “Lmao. Firstly it’s extremely common practice for film students to crowd fund for their school films. Literally almost all film students do so, especially for their senior films.”

She added, “Secondly, if her father produced her movie, then you would have a problem with it and call it nepotism. and now that she’s trying to do it on her own and WANTS to do it own her own that’s also apparently an issue?” Aaliyah defended her friend and shared that if Ida had gotten her father’s help on the film, everyone would be quick to call it nepotism, but since she is trying to do it on her own, that is also an issue.