After SC order, The Kerala Story opens in a few theatres in Tamil Nadu
A day after the Supreme Court of India instructed the Tamil Nadu government to provide protection to theatres screening the controversial film The Kerala Story, select theatres in Chennai opened a small number of shows. It is unclear whether theatres in other cities in the state are following suit. Speaking to TNM, Tamil Nadu Theatre and Multiplex Owners Association president Tiruppur Subramaniam said, “To my knowledge, no theatre in Tiruppur (where he is based) is screening the film. Distributors themselves have not bought the film. In general, Hindi films in Tamil Nadu have only limited buyers. In the last two years, hardly any Hindi film has done well here.”
On May 7, the Association decided to stop screening The Kerala Story, citing law and order concerns. Earlier this week, The Tamil Nadu government told the Supreme Court that the film was removed from the theatres due to the poor response. Responding to the petition by the makers of the film, who had alleged that the film was banned in Tamil Nadu, the state told the Supreme Court that the filmmakers had falsely stated that the government had imposed a ban. The apex court had been hearing a petition by the filmmakers against the official ban on the film in West Bengal.
At the time of Tamil Nadu Multiplex Owners withdrawing screenings, a well-known film tracker confirmed to TNM that The Kerala Story had opened shows only in Chennai, its suburban areas and in Coimbatore during its initial release on May 5. On Friday, a Chennai-based theatre owner who wished to remain anonymous told TNM they had decided not to screen the controversial film.
The Supreme Court’s decision comes at a time when the film’s director Sudipto Sen called the northern part of Kerala – which has large Muslim populations – “a hub for a terror network.” Sudipto, while interacting with the press on May 17, also said, “Two Keralas exist. One is like a postcard — backwaters, beautiful landscapes, Kalaripayattu, dance, martial arts, elephants, etc. This is the Kerala that the whole world knows about. There is another Kerala, the northern part comprising Malappuram, Kasaragod, and Kozhikode, which connects to south Karnataka, including Mangaluru. This is the hub of a terror network.”
The Kerala Story has so far received the endorsement of several Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. The film, which claims to tell the story of Hindu women from Kerala who had converted to Islam to join ISIS, has also been widely criticised as Islamophobic.
Further, the filmmakers have also been called out by fact-checking news site Alt News for the promotional material that claimed that 32,000 Hindu women had been converted to Islam. On May 5, Vipul Amrutlal Shah, the film’s producer told the Kerala High Court that they will remove the contested number of 32,000 from their social media accounts and the film’s teaser.
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