KOCHI: The film world and the Congress are almost similar in their attitude towards an issue as people belonging to both these categories will try to stay away from it until it burns their skin, national award winning actor Salim Kumar has said.
“Film folk won’t react as they are afraid. In case of awards, most of them think that the jury members can cause them harm in another occasion. Same is the case with the Congress. If I complain against something they will make up some reason or other to brand me as a sympathiser of another group,” said the actor, who is a Congress sympathiser and had actively campaigned for the party candidates.
He was participating in ‘Keralam Engottu’ a series of interactions between prominent personalities which was organised by the Ernakulam Press Club on Wednesday.
He said they won’t realize the immensity of a situation until they face the reality and then nobody will be there to speak for themselves,” he said quoting the famous verses by Martin Niemoller.
Salim Kumar said that he had approached the High Court because his film “Moonnam Naal Njayarazhcha” was not viewed by the state film award committee chairman Bharathiraja.
“We have all the documents to prove that an eminent filmmaker like Bharatiraja was lying in the presence of Minister Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishanan when he said that he had watched all the films which had been screened before the committee.
“I want to ensure that the committee at least views all the films. I am not concerned as to whom they give the award and we cannot set up any guidelines for the selection process as art is subjective,” he said.
Salim said the same was treatment meted out a documentary film ‘Pokkali’ that he had produced. this time the committee was headed by Bhagyraj. He supported filmmaker Renjith’s statement on Facebook critics which has later on become very controversial. “I agree with him as the language used by many in Facebook is vulgar. Then there are groups with vested interests who promote some and demote another. It is a wrong tendency just like some people try to bring down the films produced by their opponents paying people to howl in the cinema halls,” he said.
In a veiled attack on some superstars and their unethical tactics like Facebook promotion, Salim said,”They were boasting about one lakh likes and two lakh likes. But they had to bite the dust when actress Nazriya beat them with a huge margin. The number game stopped then.”The script for his directorial debut “Compartment” is ready. “It has nothing to with trains. Kerala has a tendency to compartmentalise everything. If a writer raises from the Dalit community, they will brand him a Dalit writer.”
His next project will be in Sanskrit based on the legendary festival ‘Mamangam’. He will enact the role of the guru who trains the warriors.