Panaji: Breaking his silence on the row over the reflections of the FTII protest at the 46th edition of the IFFI which is on here, director of the festival C. Senthil Rajan said on Wednesday that the prestigious film festival venue is neither for politics nor for protest.
Senthil also rubbished protesting FTII students and sympathisers’ allegation that that they were being victimised.
Senthil said an exclusive section for students’ films was dropped from IFFI this year in order to find more room for repeat screening of films on public demand at the festival.
“Media has been writing that we have dropped the FTII student package. We have not dropped FTII student film package, we have dropped the entire student film package, which actually comes from different film schools, not just FTII. It has been dropped only to accommodate IFFI repeats,” Rajan said.
“We have not stopped any delegate or any film student who came here to watch movies. Our objective is to showcase films. This is not a political or protest sphere. People can’t come here to stage protest. It is an arena for showcasing films. We have been very clear about that and have not stopped anybody who wanted to come and enjoy films here,” Rajan said. He also thanked the Goa Police for sensitively handling the FTII protest issue.
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the FTII students said over two dozen students was denied registration for the International Film Festival of India. Two former students were arrested for protesting at the inaugural ceremony while a student was detained for several hours by the police for wearing a t-shirt with the FTII logo on the festival campus.
As a mark of protest to these, FTII sympathisers also held a two-day parallel film festival, featuring films made by students at a venue, some half a kilometre from the venue of the international event on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Rajan said contrary to allegations made by FTII students and alumni, registration of an FTII student was cancelled in only one case, that too when a student threatened to disrupt the international event, Rajan said.
“The number of student delegates we have registered is four hundred and out of that we also have FTII students. Personally, we have cancelled only one registration of a student who has told the police that ‘I will come inside the venue and protest’,” Rajan said.
FTII students had staged a 139-day strike from June 12 this year, in protest against the appointment of Gajendra Chauhan as the institute’s chairman, claiming the actor was unfit for the position.
After the appointing authority Union ministry for Information and Broadcasting, remained stubborn and did not cancel Chauhan’s appointment. Though the students called off the strike on October 29, they insisted that their protests would continue.
The response of delegates and viewers at the on-going IFFI has been encouraging. All the theatres are receiving good presence which shows that IFFI has succeeded to a great extent in achieving its objective of showcasing good international films to Indian viewers and good Indian films to foreign delegates, he said.