Vivek Agnihotri reacts to Canadian director who called The Kashmir Files garbage

Days after he made headlines for his reaction to Anurag Kashyap’s remark that The Kashmir Files should not be sent to the Oscars, filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri has spoken about his film being criticised by Dylan Mohan Gray.

The Canadian filmmaker had recently tweeted that The Kashmir Files was ‘hatemongering garbage’ and would be an ’embarrassment to India’ if sent to the Oscars. Now, Vivek has reacted by saying how ‘someone sitting in Canada’ could notice his film in the first place. Vivek added he may not be a great filmmaker, but he understands politics.

Recently, Dylan had said that The Kashmir Files is a ‘hatemongering garbage of no artistic merit’ and added that Anurag Kashyap was right in trying to preserve what is left of India’s good name, when he expressed hopes that the film does not get selected as India’s official entry to the upcoming Oscars.

Responding to Vivek Agnihotri’s tweet on Anurag’s remark, Dylan tweeted on August 17, “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.” Dylan has made the Netflix docu-series Bad Boy Billionaires India that released in 2020.

When asked about Dylan’s comment, Vivek told ETimes in a recent interview, “This is all lobbying and politics. My political acumen is better than most filmmakers. Itna credit toh mujhe do (Please give me that much credit). I may not be a great filmmaker but I understand politics. Tell me, how did someone sitting in Canada notice my film? That means somebody is lobbying.”

In his original tweet that Dylan had responded to, Vivek had written that ‘Bollywood’s genocide-denier lobby’ had started a campaign against his film. He had shared a screenshot of a news article quoting Anurag and had tweeted, “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).”

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. It is the only Hindi film to cross the ₹300-crore barrier since the Covid-19 pandemic.