New Delhi

4, August 2003

Dear Friends,

Please find below the latest development on the campaign against censorship at MIFF as also our thoughts in Delhi about future action:

The Joint Secretary (films), Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, Govt. of India has called for a meeting with representatives of the Campaign. The meeting has been fixed for 7 August, 4:00 PM. We would request you to send in points/issues that should be raised in the meeting.
A press conference has been organised at the Press Club, New Delhi on 5, August at 3:00 PM. We plan to release the protest letter signed by 106 documentary film makers from all over the country. Our sincere apologies for the omission of some names in the earlier signatories list. Hopefully all the names have been included in the updated list. At the press conference we also plan to issue a statement, based on responses received by the Campaign, enumerating the possible course of action in case the Ministry does not remove the repugnant clause from the entry form of MIFF. As per our discussions in Delhi we are suggesting the following plan of action –
An international signature campaign of film makers and festival organisers protesting against censorship at MIFF.
An international campaign of film makers to boycott the festival.
A parallel film festival in Mumbai that will screen Indian and foreign documentaries.
Legal action. Here we suggest that this should be a collective and considered action because that would provide us with an opportunity to raise several issues regarding censorship besides the immediate goal of changing the MIFF entry rules. We would like to quote from a recent High Court judgement in the Anand Patwardhan case where he went to court against the 21 cuts imposed by the CBFC on his film, War And Peace. The Mumbai High Court had this to say while deciding in favour of Anand’s petition: "…That apart, the freedom of speech and ex-pression is important not merely for the consequences that ensue in the absence thereof but since the negation of it runs as an anti-thesis to basic human values, instincts and creativity. It is high time that the persons in authority realize the significance of freedom of speech and ex-pression rather than make and allow such attempts to stifle it." We feel this judgement has important implications for all of us collectively and we should put ourselves in a position where the full potential of the statements of the Mumbai High Court can be utilised to garner support for the independent documentary. We are of the opinion that we should wait for the response from the Ministry before jumping into any legal redressal. This option needs to be well planned and thought out so as to to strengthen the community in the long run vis a vis censorship. The current rise of authoritarianism and conservatism in the country is fairly clear given the extreme intolerance to any criticism. We the documentary film makers might be the new targets of this authoritarian streak but friends from other media including national magazines, newspapers, the regional press as well as people’s movements across the country have been under vicious attack for some time now. The attempt to gag films at MIFF are clearly part of a larger emerging scenario where the documentary is being recognised as a medium that has the potential of revealing ‘truths’ that are uncomfortable to those in power or seeking power. In the coming years we will probably witness many more attacks on documentary film makers and therefore if ever, this is the time for us to respond to these challenges as a community. The Press has fought a bitter and hard battle from the 1950s to the 1960s to free itself of censorship and the time has come for us to defend our right to freedom of ex-pression.
As a follow up to the earlier point we propose a major symposium in Mumbai during the festival on documentaries and censorship regardless of our participation or boycott.
3. We request film makers to get together on an urgent basis in their respective cities and form campaign committees on this issue.

We will keep you posted about the developments as they emerge at this end. Please find below the updated signatory list of 106 film makers supporting this Campaign across the country.

In Solidarity,

Amar Kanwar

Pankaj Butalia

Rahul Roy

Saba Dewan

Sameera Jain

Sanjay Kak









List of Signatories

Aditya Seth
Ajay Bhardwaj, Delhi
Ajay Noronha, Mumbai
Ajay Raina, New Delhi (Golden Conch winner at MIFF)
Amar Kanwar, Delhi. (Golden Conch winner at MIFF)
Anand Patwardhan, Mumbai (Golden Conch winner at MIFF)
Ananya Chatterjee, Kolkata
Anjali Gupta, New Delhi
Anjali Monterio, Mumbai (Certificate of Merit at two MIFF’s)
Anjali Panjabi, Mumbai. (Silver Conch winner at MIFF)
Anuradha Chandra, New Delhi
Aparna Sanyal, New Delhi
Arvind Sinha, Kolkata
Asheesh Pandya, Gurgaon, Haryana
Ashok Maridas, Bangalore
Ashwini Malik, Mumbai.
Batul Mukhtiar, Mumbai
Bishakha Datta, Mumbai
Chandita Mukherjee, Mumbai
Charu Gargi, Mumbai.
Christopher Rego
Daljit Ami, Chandigarh
Deepa Dhanraj, Bangalore
Deepu, Bangalore
Eddy Singh
Gargi Sen, New Delhi
I.K. Shukla, Delhi
Jabeen Merchant, Mumbai
Jeebesh Bagchi, Delhi
Jyotsna Murthy, Bangalore
Kapil Suravaram, Hyderabad
Kavita Joshi, Delhi
Kirtana Kumar, Bangalore
Konarak Reddy, Bangalore
KP Jayshankar, Mumbai. (Certificates of Merit at MIFF)
Kuttyrevathy, Kerala
Lalit Vachani, New Delhi
Manjira Datta, New Delhi
Meghnath, Ranchi
Monica Narula, Delhi
Nandan Kudhyadi, Pune
Navroze Contracter, Bangalore
Pankaj Butalia, New Delhi. (Golden Conch Winner at MIFF)
Pankaj Rishi Kumar, Mumbai
Paromita Vohra, Mumbai
Parvez Imam, Bangalore
Pawan Sony, New Delhi
Preeti Chandriani, Mumbai
Rahul Ranadive, Delhi
Rahul Roy, New Delhi
Rajashree
Rajul Mehta, Mumbai
Rakesh S Katarey, Manipal
Rakesh Sharma, Mumbai
Ranjan De, New Delhi
Ranjan Palit, Kolkata. (Golden Conch Winner at MIFF)
Ranjani Mazumdar, Delhi
Rappai Poothokaren
Reena Mohan, New Delhi (Best First Film Award at MIFF)
Ritu Kapur, New Delhi
RR Srinivasan, Chennai
Ruchir Joshi, London, UK
Rupashree Nanda, Jaipur
RV Ramani, Chennai
S.K.Das Mollick,
Saba Dewan, New Delhi. (Certificate of Merit at MIFF)
Sabeena Gadihoke, Delhi (Certificate of Merit at MIFF)
Sabina Kidwai
Sameera Jain. New Delhi. (Certificate of Merit at MIFF)
Samina Mishra, New Delhi
Sanjana , Bangalore
Sanjay Kak. New Delhi
Sanjit Narwekar, Mumbai
Sehjo Singh, New Delhi (Golden Conch Winner at MIFF)
Shabnam Virmani, Bangalore
Shashin Tiwari
Shohini Ghosh, Delhi
Shoma Chatterjee, Kolkata
Shriprakash Prakash, Ranchi
Shuddhabrata Sengupta., Delhi
Simantini Dhuru, Mumbai
Sridhar Rangayan
Stalin K., Ahmedabad (Silver Conch Winner at MIFF)
Sudheer Gupta, New Delhi
Sudheer Palsane, Mumbai
Sujit Ghosh, Lucknow
Sumit Kumar
Sunanda Bhat, Bangalore
Sunil Bhatia, Mumbai , (Golden Conch Winner at MIFF)
Sunil Shanbag, Mumbai
Supavitra Babul, New Delhi
Supriyo Sen , Kolkata
Surabhi Sharma, Bangalore
Surajit Sarkar, New Delhi
Swagat Sen, Delhi
Usha , Bangalore
Uvraj, Bangalore
Vani Subramanian, New Delhi
Vasudha Joshi, Kolkata (Golden and Silver Conch Winner at MIFF)
Veena Bakshi, Mumbai
Vijay , Bangalore
Vinod Ganatra
Vinod Raja, Bangalore
Vipin Vijay, Trivandrum (Jury Award Winner at MIFF)
Yousuf Saeed, New Delhi
Zaheer A Bagh, Ladakh