An Israeli filmmaker has triggered controversy in India after he denounced a movie on the Kashmir dispute as “propaganda” and a “vulgar movie” at a government-sponsored movie pageant in Goa.

Nadav Lapid, who headed the jury on the week-long International Film Festival of India (IFFI) that concluded on Monday, stated he was “disturbed and shocked” by the inclusion of The Kashmir Files within the occasion.

“That felt to us, seemed to us like a propaganda, vulgar movie, inappropriate for an artistic competitive section of such a prestigious film festival,” he stated in his concluding deal with at a ceremony additionally attended by India’s federal broadcasting minister Anurag Thakur and high filmmakers from completely different nations.

The Kashmir Files, a 170-minute Hindi-language film written and directed by Vivek Agnihotri, was launched in March this yr. It tells the fictional story of a pupil who discovers that his Kashmiri Hindu mother and father – often called Kashmiri Pandits – have been killed by armed rebels and never in an accident as his grandfather had made him consider.

The Kashmir Files created a storm as quickly because it was launched, with critics saying it distorted details and fanned anti-Kashmir and anti-Muslim hatred throughout India. One of probably the most profitable Bollywood releases this yr with reported earnings of $43m to this point, the film ran to packed cinemas throughout India, with cases of viewers elevating hate slogans and inciting violence throughout many screenings.

The movie, “powered by a visceral demonisation of the Kashmiri Muslim, attempts to construct the truth about Kashmir out of the carcasses of facts,” wrote documentary filmmaker Sanjay Kak in a column for Al Jazeera.

One of Agnihotri’s earlier movies, The Tashkent Files, was additionally criticised for presenting conspiracy theories on the dying of former Indian Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri as reality.

However, the movie was hailed by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), together with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah. In no less than eight BJP-ruled states, the movie was granted tax-free standing.

The Himalayan area of Kashmir has been divided between Hindu-majority India and largely Muslim Pakistan since 1947, with both nuclear armed countries claiming the territory in full however ruling over components of it.

An armed riot in opposition to New Delhi’s rule started within the Indian-administered Kashmir within the late Nineteen Eighties. The riot noticed focused assaults on the Kashmiri Pandits and resulted in an exodus of 1000’s of them into mainland India.

Many Hindus, nonetheless, stayed again within the disputed area, alluding to centuries-old bonds between the 2 communities.

To calm tempers in India over Lipid’s excoriation of the movie, Israel’s ambassador to India, Naor Gilon, on Tuesday denounced the filmmaker from his nation in a sequence of tweets. Gilon stated India-Israel ties have been very robust and would survive the “damages” inflicted by the remarks.

“I am no film expert but I do know that it’s insensitive and presumptuous to speak about historic events before deeply studying them and which are an open wound in India because many of the involved are still around and still paying a price,” Gilon posted.

“As a human being I feel ashamed and want to apologise to our hosts for the bad manner in which we repaid them for their generosity and friendship.”

An open letter to #NadavLapid following his criticism of #KashmirFiles. It’s not in Hebrew as a result of I needed our Indian brothers and sisters to have the ability to perceive. It can be comparatively lengthy so I’ll provide the backside line first. YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED. Here’s why: pic.twitter.com/8YpSQGMXIR

— Naor Gilon (@NaorGilon) November 29, 2022

Actor Anupam Kher, who options within the movie, accused the IFFI jury, headed by Lapid, of being insensitive in the direction of the struggling of Kashmiri Pandits. “The truth of Kashmir Files is stuck like a thorn in the throat of some people. They are neither able to swallow it nor spit it out,” Kher tweeted.

But Mohit Bhan, a Hindu politician based mostly in Indian-administered Kashmir, instructed Al Jazeera that “nobody is talking about the justice” to Kashmiri Pandits whose plight, he stated, stays the identical because it was within the Nineties.

“The way the movie was hijacked by the right-wing in India and the hate speeches that were made against the entire Muslim community has put the pain of Kashmiri Pandits backstage and the hatemongering at the front. The narrative has become one of Hindus against Muslims,” Bhan stated.