The Times of India: Kerala: Thursday, 24 July 2014.
There seems
to be no end to the controversies surrounding the Kerala State Film Awards, as
new issues keep popping up almost every year.
This year is
no exception. After the row over the State Film Awards jury picking the wrong
singer of an award winning song, now the Kerala High Court has issued notices
to the Kerala State Chalachitra Academy, the state government and P
Bharatiraja, chairman of the jury of Kerala state film awards 2013, alleging irregularities
in the selection of films considered for the State Award. This is following a
petition filed by Anilkumar Ambalakkara, who is the producer of National Award
winning movie, Perariyathavar. Earlier, he had filed a Right to Information
(RTI) application seeking the details regarding jury chairman's visit and stay
in the city.
It was at the
press conference organised to announce this year's State Film Awards that the
jury chairman said that he had seen all the movies submitted for the
competition. However, the complainant now alleges that the chairman did not see
all the 85 films considered for the awards and the norms for the selection of
films for the awards were violated.
As per the
documents retrieved under RTI, the screening of the movies was held from March
17 to April 4. Apparently, Bharathiraja first arrived in the city to review the
films on March 19 evening and left the city on March 21 afternoon. Later, the
filmmaker arrived again on March 30 and left on April 4. "From this schedule
itself, it is very clear that he was here for only seven days and the time is
not at all enough to watch all the 85 movies. In fact, we came to know that he
didn't watch the movie Perariyathavar, as he had left the place by then. He did
not watch many other movies as well," says the petitioner, adding that he
has sought a derivative to comprise an expert screening committee to evaluate
all the films submitted for competition for 2013.
Director
Harikumar, who was part of the jury, strongly defended the complainant's
statement saying that the chairman had watched all the movies. "The
technology is advanced, and there are many ways to watch a film. In fact, it is
not necessary to watch it in theatres. But as a jury member, I can assure you,
we judged each and every film based on technical excellence and the performance
of the artistes. And the judgment was quite impartial," he added.
However, Dr
Biju pointed out that Harikumar's statement is quite contradictory. "Most
of the films, including Perariyathavar, haven't released yet and its DVDs are
not available. So, how is it possible to watch such a film elsewhere?" he
asks.
.JPG)
.JPG)
