NEW DELHI: The sharp critique by Israeli filmmaker and International Film Festival of India 2022 jury president Nadav Lapid of the Indian competition entry The Kashmir Files at the festival’s closing ceremony in Panjim on Monday evening snowballed into a diplomatic kerfuffle the morning after.
So, who is Lapid? Apart from being a highly acclaimed and significant filmmaking voice, Lapid has also been a no-holds-barred dissenter in his own country, never shy of expressing opinions on issues that he has felt strongly about. Lapid’s beliefs and values have illuminated his films.
Synonyms (2019), the Berlinale Golden Bear winner, reflected his inner conflicts with homeland Israel, the idea of nationalism, and the complicated issue of his Jewish identity. Ahed’s Knee (2021), about a filmmaker negotiating his artistic freedom with the Establishment, the ministry of culture, showed how the personal, the national and the political are deeply intertwined in his DNA, both as an individual and a creator.
Most recently, Lapid, along with the likes of Ari Folman of Waltz with Bashir fame, had been one of the 250 signatories to a letter by the Israeli filmmaking community opposing the Shomron Film Fund, proposed by culture minister Miri Regev, which they felt was all about whitewashing the Palestinian occupation by giving grants to Jewish settlers in the West Bank. They likened it to cultural apartheid.
In all the brouhaha following Lapid’s comments, the spotlight has turned on him. The filmmaker has become a popular Indian name in a matter of 24 hours. For cinephiles on the side-lines of the festival, more than the debate on The Kashmir Files as an Indian entry, it has been the choice of Lapid as the head of the jury that has come as a surprise. Did the ministry not know enough about him and his work? Did he fall between the bureaucratic cracks of cinematic ignorance?
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