After being nominated for the Oscars in 2004 and other prestigious awards for his film Little Terrorist, director Ashvin Kumar recently won the National Award for the best film on social issues. His documentary Inshallah Football that brought him the honour is about a Kashmiri boy’s dream to play football and how his father’s past jeopardises his dreams. Apparently the film was first banned by the Indian Censor Board and it took almost a year before the Board finally gave it an A certificate.
“I filed for RTI so I got all the notes by the Censor Board’s reviewing team. They said that the characters are not believable and it should not be shown in India as it is anti-government and it shows India in poor light,” narrates Ashvin.
Never a big fan of the Censor Board, Ashvin decided to bypass the process of getting a certificate for his documentary film Ishallah, Kashmir that he released on January 26 this year on YouTube and Vimeo. Inshallah, Kashmir, which was conceived during the making of Inshallah Football, highlights the plight of the widows, orphans and former militants edited out of the first film. In no mood to get another film banned by the Board, he had to take this step. He says, “I came across the painful stories of the people of Kashmir when I was working on Football. I had to get their voices heard and fearing Censor Board will create hurdles, I released it on the Internet.”
Ashvin feels that Indian cinema is going through a very good phase. The world is acknowledging the efforts of our filmmakers. “It is a positive sign. Indian audiences are maturing and films are being made with a one-dimensional approach. It’s time the Censor Board embrace a liberal approach and be transparent. Censor Board should not be an anachronistic body, rather it should be progressive and stick only to certifying films,” he says.
Ashvin’s next is an 85-min long feature film called The Forest, which is releasing in theatres all over the country on April 13, along with Little Terrorist, in collaboration with PVR Director’s Rare. The Forest, starring Ankur Vikal, Nandana Sen and Jaaved Jaffery among others, is about a wounded leopard, whose only choice for survival is to hunt humans and is inspired by one such attack. “The Forest is a thriller with an environmental conscience. I wanted to concentrate on the wildlife crisis that is staring us in the face, not only global warming and devastating effects of destruction on the planet, but focus on the most callous destruction of all — poaching, killing animals for their skin and bones,” he adds.
Ashvin is currently working on a female-centric film with a “Bollywood star” which is called Hype and promises it is going to have loads of love, sex and rock ‘n’ roll.