Two national awards for Malayalam films
IT'S a proud moment for Malayalam film industry as two artistes won supporting actor awards in the national film awards announced on Friday.
The two actors were Vijayaraghavan for his performance in Pookkaalam and Urvashi (Ullozhukku).
The News Minute adds:
Sudipto Sen, who directed The Kerala Story, a film widely viewed as a political tool aligned with the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) majoritarian political agenda, was adjudged Best Director at the 71st National Film Awards for the year 2023, announced on Friday, August 1.
The film also won an award for Best Cinematography.
The Kerala Story follows the lives of three women protagonists from Kerala, portrayed as victims of ‘love jihad’, a term propagated by right-wing groups, referring to a conspiracy theory which purports that Muslim men seduce, kidnap or marry Hindu women to convert them to Islam.
Soon after its release on May 5, 2023, the film faced widespread criticism for being a distorted and misleading account of how women from Kerala are allegedly joining the Islamic State (ISIS) in hordes.
The controversy began with the film’s teaser, released on November 3, 2022, which claimed that 32,000 women from Kerala had been radicalised and sent to Syria and Yemen — an unverified and grossly inflated figure.
After accusations of promoting hate speech, the filmmakers walked back the claim, saying the number quoted in the film was based on various news reports.
However, data received via an RTI from the Ministry of Home Affairs tells a very different story. From 2014 to 2020, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) arrested 177 individuals across India for ISIS-related activities — only 19 of them were from Kerala. In 2016, 21 people went missing from Kerala in suspected ISIS cases, including 17 Muslims, four of whom were converts (three from Christianity, one from Hinduism).
Despite this, the film leans heavily on the debunked “love jihad” narrative, crafting a storyline that contradicts facts. The film has also been accused of fueling communal divisions under the guise of creative storytelling.
