Canadian filmmaker says ‘hatemongering garbage’ The Kashmir Files will be ’embarrassment to India’ if sent to Oscars

Filmmaker Dylan Mohan Gray has said that The Kashmir Files is a “hatemongering garbage of no artistic merit” and added that Anurag Kashyap was just trying to preserve what is left of India’s good name, when he expressed hopes that the film is not selected as the official entry to Oscars this year. Dylan has made the Netflix docu-series Bad Boy Billionaires India that released in 2020. (Also read: Anurag Kashyap comments on The Kashmir Files’ Oscars bid, Vivek Agnihotri reacts)

Responding to Vivek Agnihotri’s tweet on Anurag’s remark, Dylan tweeted, “Yeah, actually it’s (hatemongering, revisionist) garbage of no artistic merit and will be a further embarrassment to India if ‘selected’ by the ‘neutral’ board… Anurag Kashyap is just trying to preserve what’s left of the country’s good name.” He used the hashtags ‘you’re welcome’ and ‘The Kashmir Files’. Dylan added in a separate tweet, “Though RRR is also vile and sadistic, so not much of a step up.”

In his original tweet, Vivek Agnihotri had written that ‘Bollywood’s genocide-denier lobby’ had started a campaign against his film. He shared a screenshot of a news article quoting Anurag and tweeted Wednesday afternoon, “Important: The vicious, genocide-denier lobby of Bollywood has started their campaign against The Kashmir Files for Oscars, under the leadership of the maker of Dobaaraa (Anurag).”

Anurag batted for RRR as India’s official Oscars entry this year and told Galatta Plus in an interview recently, “India might actually have a nomination in the final five if RRR is the film they pick. I don’t know what film anybody is going to pick. I hope not The Kashmir Files.”

Directed by Vivek Agnihotri, The Kashmir Files featured Anupam Kher, Pallavi Joshi, Mithun Chakraborty and Darshan Kumar in lead roles. The film opened to mixed reviews and emerged as one of the top grosser Hindi films this year. The film is based on the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from the Valley in the late-1980s. While the film received critical acclaim for portrayal of a sensitive issue, many also criticised it for painting all Muslims as aggressors.