‘Kantara nothing like Tumbbad, celebrates toxic masculinity’

Filmmaker Anand Gandhi doesn’t seem impressed with Rishab Shetty’s Kantara and denies the rising suggestion that the Kannada action-drama is similar to the 2018 period horror Tumbbad, which he worked on as the creative director. The plots of both films are rooted in folklore and have elements of horror.

“Kantara is nothing like Tumbbad. My idea behind Tumbbad was to use the horror as an allegory of toxic masculinity and parochialism. Kantara is a celebration of these,” Gandhi tweeted.

His remarks sparked a row on Twitter, and Gandhi went on to face backlash from fans. One of the commenters wrote, “Your understanding of Indian society, Masculinity and Dharma is pretty parochial. Don’t preach. That’s not your job (sic).”

Many, however, came out in support of the Ship of Theseus (2012) director’s views and commented in his favour. “Those who will understand the films will understand this as well. Your work was in a different league altogether,” read a comment on his tweet. “Kantara is everything wrong with present India.. unfortunately the film is celebrated,” read another.

ANI

Kashmir Files.

In a joint Twitter statement, American producer Jinko Gotoh, French film editor Pascale Chavance and French filmmaker Javier Angulo Barturen, said, “We stand by his (Lapid’s) statement. And to clarify, we were not taking a political stance on the film’s content. We were making an artistic statement, and it saddens us greatly to see the festival platform being used for politics and subsequent personal attacks on Nadav,” the statement read.

Sudipto Sen, the lone Indian in the jury board, however, maintained that Lapid’s remarks were his personal opinion. “I stand by that we didn’t award The Kashmir

Files. We only awarded five films. This decision was unanimous. We gave an official