Pakistani filmmaker Khalid Hasan Khan returns award

Whether India is a tolerant country or not has seemed to have piqued the interest of the Pakistani film fraternity now, with a Pakistani director joining India’s so-called #awardwapsi gang. It’s not certain what Khalid Hasan Khan was trying to achieve when he returned the award given to him at Delhi International Film Festival ( DIFF) last year for his film Hotal, in protest against the ‘growing intimidation of Bollywood stars in India’. However, he has probably managed to get all Pakistani filmmakers and their films left out of the festival this year. With the fourth edition of the festival about to start in a few days, officials are now left wondering, what if they award other Pakistani artistes this year and they too return it?

It’s an insult: DIFF

Ram Kishore Parcha, founder president of DIFF, fuming at the ‘insult’, says, “I have not spoken to Khalid Hasan Khan yet. He has made comments like, ‘An award may be won tomorrow, but freedom of expression is important’. This is the same man who told us that he was arrested and tortured for sending us the film before showing it to the producer. And now he is returning the award? This is very insulting. Whatever is the situation in our country, we will deal with it, who are you? We have awarded you because you have done good work, returning an award is an insult. It means we have taken a wrong decision in awarding you,” he says, adding with righteous indignation, “Ye masla Pakistan mein hal ho raha hai, ye hum bardasht nahin kar sakte. Aap humare desh ka apman kar rahe hain.”

No visas yet for Pakistani artistes invited this year

Parcha says, “On Friday, I got a call from the Indian embassy in Pakistan and was told about Khalid’s decision to return the award. He says he is returning it on moral grounds.”

DIFF had sent invites to around 12 people from the Pakistani film fraternity for this year’s festival. But this award waapsi has had an obvious ripple effect. Even though the festival is set to start next week, the visas for Pakistani artistes have not yet been cleared.

Parcha says, “Humayun Gilani and other Pakistani film and documentary makers and artists were supposed to come for the festival this year. Every year, I inform the Indian embassy in Pakistan about the Pakistani artistes invited for the festival. But this year, I have been asked to send the list to the Ministry of External Affairs. We will decide on Monday if we want to go ahead and send them the list of artists.”

He adds, “Seven movies from Pakistan were to be shown in our overseas sections and now we are not even sure if we will screen any of those films. Because of this one man, why should a dozen other Pakistani artistes suffer? The I&B Ministry has the list of all the films which are to be screened. After they clear it, we will decide whether we want to show the Pakistani films or not.”