'The Kashmir Files': Vivek Agnihotri, Anurag Kashyap spar with each other on Twitter

Ace directors Anurag Kashyap and Vivek Agnihotri attacked each other on Twitter on Wednesday after the latter disagreed with the Dobaaraa director on his comments on current trends in Bollywood and regional movies. It all started when Agnihotri shared a screenshot of Kashyap’s interview, where he had said that “films like Kantara and Pushpa are destroying the industry (Bollywood)". Sharing the screenshot on Twitter, Agnihotri said that he doesn’t agree with Kashyap and called him a 'Bollywood Milord.'  

He wrote: "I totally totally totally disagree with the views of Bollywood's one & only Milord. Do you agree?" 

Replying back, Kashyap in a terse tone said: "Sir aapki galti nahin hai, aap ki filmon ki research bhi aisi hi hoti hai jaise aapki mere conversations pe tweet hai. Aapka aur aapki media ka bhi same haal hai. Koi nahin next time thoda serious research kar lena. (Sir, it is not your fault. The research is missing in your movies just like in my tweets. Your condition is same as your media’s. Please do some research next time).  

Agnihotri replied back saying that the ‘Gangs of Wasseypur’ director should prove that the four-year research work on his movie 'The Kashmir Files' was a lie. 

He wrote, "Bholenath, aap lage haath sabit kar hi do ki #TheKashmirFiles ka 4 saal ka research sab jhooth tha. Girija Tikoo, BK Ganju, Airforce killing, Nadimarg sab jhooth tha. 700 Panditon ke video sab jhooth the. Hindu kabhi mare hi nahin. Aap prove kar do, DOBAARA aisi galti nahin hogi (Please go ahead and prove that The Kashmir Files' 4 years research was all a lie. Girija Tikoo, BK Ganju, Airforce killing, Nadimarg was all a lie. Videos of 700 Pandits was a lie. Hindus never died. You prove it and this mistake won't happen DOBAARAA (again) (sic)." 

Kashyap in a recent interview to Galatta Plus said that after the success of Nagraj Manjule's Sairat, many moviemakers tried to replicate the movie to mint money, which led to the destruction of Marathi cinema. Sairat, starring Rinku Rajguru and Akash Thosar, was released in 2016, and is one of the highest-grossing Marathi films of recent times. 

Kashyap further added that: “Films like Kantara and Pushpa give you courage to go out and tell your stories. KGF 2, however, big success, when you try and emulate that and set a project up, that’s when you start heading towards disaster. That’s how Bollywood destroyed itself. You have to find films that give you courage.”  

Controversies around The Kashmir Files 

The Kashmir Files, starring Anupam Kher, Mithun Chakraborty and Pallavi Joshi, is one of the top grossers of this year. But the movie too had its share of controversies making headlines. The movie was in news recently after International Film Festival of India (IFFI) jury head and Israeli filmmaker Nadav Lapid criticised The Kashmir Files calling it ‘propaganda and vulgar’  

“We were, all of us, disturbed and shocked by the 15th film: The Kashmir Files. That felt to us like propaganda, vulgar movie, inappropriate for an artistic competitive section of such a prestigious film festival. I feel totally comfortable to share openly these feelings here with you on stage. Since the spirit of having a festival is to accept also a critical discussion which is essential for art and for life," Lapid had said during the closing ceremony of IFFI. 

Following that, Agnihotri issued a video statement saying: “Time and again the question arises that The Kashmir Files is a propaganda film — which means genocide attack never happened. Today, I challenged these intellectuals and this great filmmaker from Israel that if they can prove even one shot, dialogue or event is false, I will quit making films."