THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The much-hyped ‘Films by Women Directors’ project of the Kerala State Film Development Corporation (KSFDC) has come under the scanner with a woman filmmaker coming out with serious allegations against the corporation for delaying the theatre release of her movie. Filmmaker I G Mini was one of the two filmmakers chosen for the ambitious project which aims at promoting women filmmakers.
Mini alleged her movie ‘Divorce’ was completed before ‘Nishiddho’, but KSFDC chose to promote and release the latter as the first movie produced by the corporation. According to her, KSFDC had promised multiple release dates for her movie, but postponed its release every time.
The project was launched by the KSFDC in 2019 and ‘Nishiddho’ and ‘Divorce’ were chosen for the project from around 60 scripts submitted by aspiring women filmmakers. The project offers Rs 1.5 crore each for the two projects. “My film was censored and completed first, but my movie is facing neglect because of some personal grudge,” she said.
KSFDC Managing Director N Maya told TNIE that the allegations made by Mini were baseless and the corporation has not shown any partiality towards any of the filmmakers shortlisted for the project.
“We were unable to release the movies because of the unavailability of theatre screens. Nishiddho was the first script chosen for the project, and the movie has done well and is getting accolades everywhere. We have certain benchmarks and will release Nishiddho first. Mini was very much convinced when we shared this. We will certainly release her movie and as a producer, we cannot release both movies simultaneously,” said Maya.
She said four more movies are getting ready for release. “We will release all movies one by one, based on the criteria. The allegations have no grounds,” she added.