IFFI Row: After Sujoy Ghosh's Resignation, Apurva Asrani Steps Down From Jury

After two films- Sanal Kumar Sasidharan’s S Durga and Ravi Jadhav’s Nude were removed, and the fest’s jury head Sujoy Ghosh resigned from the 48th International Film Festival of India (IFFI), another jury member has called it quits.

Sasidharan took to Facebook and penned down an elaborate post acknowleging the "boldness" of some jury members. "If they had not come out openly and the media took it up with ample weightage everything would have been very well covered up by the dictatorship. Jury chairman Sujoy Ghosh and one jury member Apurva Asrani has resigned. Another jury member Ruchi Narain has made open statement against the decision of the ministry. This is purely a fightback from them as artists. I know very well that, they did this with complete knowledge that the ruling party will use all the opportunity to harass them," the post read.

Asrani told News18.com a day before the final news broke out that a big development is on the cards. “I am not ready to comment on this yet. But I’ll have an answer tomorrow morning. There might be some developments and I’m sure you’ll hear of it," he said.

The Information and Broadcasting Ministry on November 9 had 26 feature and 16 non-feature films for the Indian Panorama section of IFFI. Both S Durga and Nude were recommended for the section by the 13-member jury but were dropped from the Ministry's final list.

Soon after the announcement, Asrani had taken to Twitter to shed light on the relevance of both films.

“ #SexyDurga & #Nude are among the best of contemporary cinema. They both present a powerful & empathetic portrait of women in today’s India," he wrote.

Meanwhile, Sasidharan on Tuesday filed a petition in the Kerala High Court against the Information and Broadcasting ministry and IFFI officials. He told News18.com, "The ministry is tarnishing the greatest festival of India. It’s a very sad moment not only for the film fraternity but also for all the citizens of India."

His petition said the ministry "arbitrarily vetoed" the IFFI jury's decision and dropped his film "without notice" and "without assigning any reason," and that the "The decision is totally illegal and erroneous."