Actor and raconteur Salim Kumar, on Wednesday, took a dig at the State Film Award Jury for 2013 saying plots of all films that were to be viewed by the jury would have been narrated to the jury chairman Bharathiraja.
An RTI response obtained by the actor recently revealed that contrary to Bharathiraja’s claim of watching all films screened for evaluation, he had skipped many screenings, including that of Mr. Salim Kumar’s first directorial venture, ‘Moonnam Naal Njayarazhcha’. The actor has moved the High Court against the State government and the award jury.
“Watching a film being shortlisted for the award is a basic requirement. That apart, the jury is well within its right to give away the award to anyone it likes. We used to have a childhood practice of children fancifully relating stories of films they watched to those who could not. Maybe Bharathiraja would have been told storyline of all films that he was to watch,” said the actor, eliciting peals of laughter in journalists at a ‘meet the press’ programme organised by Ernakulam Press Club as part of its Onam celebrations.
He said ‘Moonnam Naal Njayarazhcha’ is planned for release in cinemas in November. To a question on why the organised film fraternity turned a blind eye to unethical practices, he said no one in the film world wanted to burn his/her bridges with the powers that be.
“Unless it affects them, film personalities do not generally voice their opinion on issues.”
Asked about his absence from films after winning the national award for the best actor, he said while he wanted to appear in comic roles as in the past, everyone was eager to cast him in drab, serious roles.
The actor, also a good writer, is now busy writing script for a film titled, ‘Compartment’ which will be produced and directed by him. “It doesn’t have anything to do with railways, but the central characters of the film belong to a sector that never got depicted in films,” said the actor. Following this would be a film in Sanskrit.
