Mumbai: Renowned filmmaker Sujoy Ghosh has resigned from the jury of the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) over the dropping of two films which were selected by the festival jury, trade sources said on Tuesday.The Information and Broadcasting Ministry had on November 9 announced the list of feature and non-feature films to feature for IFFI, which will be held from November 20 to 28 in Goa.
The list did not include the names of Sanal Sasidharan’s Malayalam film S Durga and Ravi Jadhav’s Marathi film Nude despite the festival jury having selected the films.Members of the jury have criticised the decision of the Ministry to drop the films from the list without consulting with the jury.
Writer Apurva Asrani, one of the jury members, took to Twitter to voice his protest over the films being dropped from the list.“Sexy Durga & Nude are among the best of contemporary cinema.They both present a powerful and empathetic portrait of women of today’s India,' he tweeted.
The jury had recommended 'Nude' as the opening film, with Sujoy calling it a 'strong feminist film' and also lauding 'S Durga' for its strong message about women's safety.Apart from Ghosh and Asrani, the feature film jury for IFFI also includes director Rahul Rawail, actor-director Gopi Desai, filmmaker Nishikant Kamat, director-writer Nikkhil Advani and director-writer Ruchi Narain. (UNI)