IFFI rubbishes Anurag Kashyap's claims, says festival is only about films

A day after filmmaker Anurag Kashyap termed the ongoing IFFI as an event of "babus", festival director Shankar Mohan on Tuesday rubbished his remarks saying the 11-day-long extravaganza is "all about films" where interference by government is next to none.

"IFFI is fully 100%government-funded festival with certain formalities and protocols. If a private organiser is doing some festival you will find him on the stage. Once the opening and closing ceremony get over, we hardly interfere. I make appearances somewhere only to felicitate someone," he told a mid-fest press conference on the sidelines of the event here.

Kashyap had stated that IFFI needs a complete overhaul with less involvement of bureaucrats. "IFFI needs little less bureaucracy. Artwork is so sub- standard that you feel you have come for a government conference and not a film festival. First they should stop their bureaucracy and 'babugiri'," the director had said at recently concluded NFDC's Film Bazaar on the sidelines of IFFI.