Film director Sudipto Sen during the promotional event of his film story of kerala, at Kolkata, on the 19th May, 2023. , Photo Credit: PTI
story of keralaMovie halls in Bengal remained absent for the second consecutive day on May 20 as theater-owners stayed away from screening the controversial film.
The Supreme Court overturned the West Bengal government’s ban on the film on May 18 and its distributors have tried to interest theater owners in picking it up, with no success so far.
Satdeep Saha, the distributor of the film in Bengal told PTI“There has been no change in the situation… no theater owner has said yes (to show the film) yet”.
Read also: West Bengal government bans screening story of kerala to maintain harmony
On Friday, the film’s director Sudipta Sen speculated that cinema hall owners here might have been afraid of showing the controversial film, which was earlier banned by the state, as it could lead to “communal disturbances”.
At a press conference on Friday, Mr Sen claimed he has been told by several hall owners that he has been threatened “from certain quarters” and asked not to screen the film.
story of kerala which was released in theater halls on 5 May, claiming that women from Kerala were forced to convert to Islam and were recruited by the terrorist group Islamic State (IS).
With the top court overturning West Bengal’s ban on the film came a ruling that the film should be screened with a disclaimer that it was a “fictionalised version” and that the claims of the number of women converting to Islam had no authentic basis. There was no data.
An earlier film made by Vivek Agnihotri that attracted similar controversy was The Kashmir Files was slated to release in March 2022 in cinemas across India, including Bengal, despite restrictions due to the pandemic.
It was shown in more than 100 theaters in Kolkata.