A reputed director Anurag Kashyap who is known for making bold movies like ‘Badlapur’ is practically fuming when a video clip from the short film he had directed started being circulated on the social media WhatsApp over the weekend. According to Anurag Kashyap, the video clip, is taken out of context and features his lead actress Radhika Apte in the scene. In the movie, Radhika Apte was required her to be semi-nude. Radhika Apte too feels victimized and exploited over the video clip. On the other hand, Anurag Kashyap holds himself responsible for the video clip that is taking rounds in the social media.
Anurag Kashyap had informed some media personnel and claimed that he had contacted Mumbai Police Commissioner Rakesh Maria and lodged a complaint with him. Mumbai Police Commissioner Rakesh Maria in turn activated the sleuths of the Cyber Crime Branch. Anurag Kashyap believes that, this crime of creating and putting the offending video clip on social media has to be some Indian guy outside India. He claims that other material from other sources which is much more sexual is available to the West but only something like this gets them excited.
Anurag Kashyap went to explain to the media personnel how the shot seen out of context is an insult to an artist’s work.
According to Kashyap, there is a short film of 20 minutes that I had been commissioned to direct (there are 6 other directors from different parts of the world who have also directed different films that will eventually form a part of one big film that is yet to be released).
This film was with subtitles and meant for release only in the international market. My story was inspired by a true story and is a very powerful film. It was very difficult to make this short film due to this little sequence in the film of a few seconds that involves the actress to lift her dress and expose her lower front part and needed that very minor partial nudity front shot. It took us so much time to do it in a non-sexual way, as it is meant to be absolutely non-sexual and we took all the care we could. It was not easy to find an actor who is brave enough to participate in it. The entire shooting crew was women as we knew that we were making something as sensitive as this.
He added that there were girls at every stage of the post-production, at every stage of the post-production, that part was either sent blank or pixelated before being sent. Therefore nobody even knew who is a part of the film. Everybody assumes that since it is an Indian film, it will always be pixelated. After taking all the care, the film was delivered to New York a month back. After a month of this, suddenly the video shows up – totally out of context”.
Anurag Kashyap was also all praise for the lead actress Radhika Apte who was courageous enough to agree to do the film. He claimed that he respected and admired her a lot for this and wished something like this would not have happened, he regretted.
Anurag Kashyap claimed that he is confident that the cops will eventually catch the guy who started it. They have written to Facebook and WhatsApp also. We want that something like this should not happen in the future. For someone’s one second of fun, he has caused so much damage. When you see the video in context, it makes you question some things and makes you numb but out of context it gives various meanings. Radhika is today one of the bravest actresses we have who is so forward thinking. You look at her and you want more people to be like her but this video just pulls you back as many people will not attempt to do things like this again after such incidents. For this one particular scene we were so careful that we even recreated the entire set in a secluded place so that we could shoot in a completely closed atmosphere. We took so much precaution. I am very angry and am going to spend the rest of my life to find this guy.
