'I am against...': Anurag Kashyap reacts to 'The Kerala Story' controversy

The first half of 2023 has seen several movies released in theatres as well as on OTT platforms. But the one movie which has drawn maximum reactions from the public has been "The Kerala Story".

Joining the chorus to voice his opinion on the movie, director Anurag Kashyap called the Adah Sharma-starrer a "propaganda" film but admitted he was not in favour of imposing a ban on the movie.

"Frankly you can’t escape politics in today’s day and age. It’s very hard for cinema to be non-political. A lot of films that we call propaganda films like The Kerala Story are being made. I’m totally against banning anything but it is a propaganda film. That’s political. I don’t want to make a film that sounds like counter-propaganda," Kashyap told Hindustan Times in an interview.

"As a filmmaker, I don’t want to sound like an activist. I’m making cinema. Cinema has to be based on reality and truth and the politics of it comes from the politics of the world it is based on and the truths and facts of the world it is based on," he added.

Kashyap had expressed a similar view earlier in May, when he posted a tweet stating that he was not in favour of banning the movie whether anyone agreed with the movie or not.
"The Kerala Story" is a movie which depicts the journey of a woman- with aspirations of becoming a nurse-who converted to Islam, only to be abducted from her home and coerced by extremists. The woman was eventually manipulated into working for ISIS and ended up in a prison in Afghanistan.