At least 10 FTII alumni, including filmmakers Dibakar Banerjee and Anand Patwardhan returned their national film awards yesterday, protesting against the murder of MM Kalburgi and Govind Pansare. They also came out in support of FTII students, who are protesting against the appointment of Gajendra Chauhan as the Director.
Anand Patwardhan, who led this movement in film fraternity, is a known Modi baiter and hater. He had launched or joined several anti-Modi campaigns in the past. He not only called Modi a ‘Fascist’ and ‘Hitler’, but also dubbed him as a ‘Mass Murderer’ in 2013 while signing a petition urging David Cameron to ban Modi’s entry into the UK. He had even campaigned against Narendra Modi in Varanasi during Lok Sabha polls and prayed for Kejriwal’s victory.
Apart from Anand and Dibakar, many others such as Paresh Kamdar (Screenwriter), Nishtha Jain (Director), Kirti Nakhwa (Producer), Hari Nair (Cinematographer), Rakesh Sharma (Documentary Filmmaker), Indraneel Lahiri (Cinematographer), Lipika Singh Darai (Director) and Harshavardhan Kulkarni (Director) returned their film awards.
