Four filmmakers who sent their entries to the Malayalam Cinema Today category of the 28th International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK) have alleged, citing analytics records of streaming platforms, that the jury has not watched their films. The Kerala Chalachitra Academy, which hosts the annual film festival, featuring films of Asian, African and Latin American countries, has however denied these allegations.
The allegation was first raised by Shiju Balagopalan, director of the film ‘Eraan’ (One who always obeys) through a Facebook post. Shiju said that he was shocked to see that not even a second from the film was played after the link was submitted as per analytics provided by the streaming platform Vimeo. He also alleged that though the download option was activated the analytics showed it wasn’t downloaded. He attached a letter from the Vimeo technical support team to prove his contention.
Similar allegations were raised by Mohammed Sadik, director of The Steering, Gireesh PC Palam who directed Zha and Christon Joseph the director of Menu. The Kerala Chalachitra Academy denied these allegations and said every submitted film was watched by jury members and that they have evidence to prove the same. Shiju also submitted a complaint to the office of the Chief Minister in this regard on October 17.
"All the films submitted to the Malayalam Cinema Today category were screened for the selection committee. The entries were submitted as online screeners and Google Drive links, and they were downloaded for screening to overcome buffering issues," the statement said. The statement said the information regarding the films being streamed were not available in the analytics because the films were downloaded, the Academy said inviting the filmmakers to verify the digital evidence and the register kept at their office signed by the committee members who attested watching the films.
In the last few days, multiple allegations had come out against the Academy regarding film screenings.
Mohammed Sadik, in a post on Facebook said the explanation by the Academy is not satisfactory as he had submitted his film as an Unlisted YouTube link and the download option was not enabled. Filmmaker Gireesh PC Palam also alleged that the submitted link to his film Zha was not even opened.
Christon Joseph, director of the film Menu, on October 22 shared the screenshot of the analytics page of his Vimeo account which suggests that the film was neither streamed or downloaded between September 30 and October 15, when the selection committee was supposed to watch the films. He also added that he has not received any request from the Academy to download his film.
National award-winning filmmaker Dr Biju, writing on Facebook asked how the Academy could download the films when no such right was granted by filmmakers.
Movement for Independent Cinema (MIC) an organisation of Indie filmmakers said in a statement that if the films were indeed downloaded by the Academy for being screened before jury members the analytics would have shown evidence for download. MIC pointed out that this is not the first time that such an allegation has been raised against the Academy. In 2019 Bengali film director Indrasis Acharya had alleged that the link of his film Parcel was not opened by the selection committee.
A few days ago, Dr Biju had declared that he would not submit his films to the IFFK because the Kerala Chalachitra Academy was ignoring his films. His latest film Adrishya Jalakangal starring Nimisha Sajayan and Tovino Thomas was not selected for the Malayalam Cinema Today category.