Festival Fiasco

Sheer neglect of procedure and muddled leadership have done more harm to IFFK than any act of censorship.

Kerala

The International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK) has long prided itself on being India’s most politically alert cinephile gathering and a place where serious cinema, global causes and robust debate intersect. This year, however, the 30th edition of the IFFK turned into a cautionary tale about how administrative laxity, dressed up as ideological resistance, can corrode credibility faster than any act of censorship.

At the heart of the controversy is the Union government’s initial denial of censorship exemption to 19 films slated for screening at the festival, including a clutch of Palestinian titles and even Sergei Eisenstein’s centenarian classic Battleship Potemkin. Four films were later cleared. However, protests followed and political denunciations came thick and fast. Kerala’s Chief Minister, Pinarayi Vijayan, stepped in with a directive that all scheduled films be screened. To many in the festival’s faithful audience, it looked like a familiar morality play - an overbearing Centre throttling artistic freedom, resisted heroically by a defiant state. But that tidy narrative is now fraying.

Deepika Suseelan, artistic director of IFFK as recently as 2022, has punctured the balloon with an inconvenient reminder: censorship exemptions are governed less by ideology than by paperwork. And paperwork, she suggests, was precisely where the organisers failed. Exemption, she notes, is not granted on the fly. It requires applications to be submitted at least a month in advance. For a December festival, that means early November. The exemption order itself is typically expected a fortnight before the festival opens.

This year, according to her, the Kerala State Chalachitra Academy (KSCA), which runs IFFK, submitted its application perilously late, only this month. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, she says, cited this delay as the sole reason for denial. If so, outrage directed at Delhi may be theatrics misdirected. Public grandstanding after administrative negligence as Suseelan tartly put it, is not a substitute for institutional discipline.

Others from within Kerala’s film fraternity echo that assessment. Filmmaker Dr Biju, a frequent IFFK participant and former jury member, has asked the most basic question: why were films scheduled at all without securing mandatory permissions? No serious international festival does that. To do so is to gamble the festival’s integrity on hope and to invite precisely the sort of last-minute chaos now unfolding.

Compounding the problem is a leadership vacuum. For the first time in its three-decade history, IFFK is being held without either an artistic director or the visible presence of its chairman. Resul Pookutty, the Oscar-winning sound designer who currently heads the KSCA, is abroad on prior commitments. Former chairman Kamal and others have noted that such an absence is institutionally indefensible.

The result is a credibility crisis that extends beyond this year’s screenings. Suseelan warns that mishandling the exemption process now could invite tighter scrutiny and stricter controls in future editions, complicating submissions, discouraging international participation and narrowing curatorial freedom. The damage, she suggests, will not be easy to undo.

There is also the question of intent. Choosing ‘Palestine 36’ as the opening film, which has been criticised by some as overtly one-sided political messaging, has fuelled perceptions that confrontation was not merely accidental.

The Modi government has adopted a calibrated West Asia policy, maintaining historic support for Palestinian welfare while deepening strategic ties with Israel. That balance has served India’s diplomatic and security interests well. Against this backdrop, it is neither unreasonable nor sinister for the Centre to expect strict procedural compliance before granting exemptions, especially when films are framed not merely as art but as political statements.

Kerala’s Chief Minister eventually directed that all films be screened, effectively converting a procedural lapse into a political showdown.

This may have played well to the gallery, but it sets a reckless precedent. If IFFK wishes to remain a serious festival rather than a performative one, it must relearn a basic truth: institutional credibility is built on process. When that collapses, no amount of righteous anger can fill the void.