Saeed Mirza lauds Kerala for sustaining IFFK for 30 years

Saeed Akhtar Mirza, chairman of the K.R. Narayanan Institute of Visual Sciences and Arts, has come down heavily on the movie The Kerala Story, which won the national film awards for best direction and cinematography for 2025.

Inaugurating the Regional International Film Festival of Kerala (RIFFK) in Kozhikode on Friday (August 8), the three-time national award-winning filmmaker of Mohan Joshi Hazir Ho!, Salim Langde pe Mat Ro, and Naseem said that movies like The Kerala Story that spread exaggerated half-truths were worse than lies and weapons in the hands of fascists.

Appreciating the International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK) for bringing back sanity, rationality, and poetry to cinema, Mr. Mirza noted that Kerala had internalised cinema. “This is the only State in the country that has sustained a film festival with such deep public participation for 30 years,” he said, noting that the IFFK had its beginning in Kozhikode in 1994.

He appreciated the role played by film societies in the State in nurturing cinema culture and mentioned doyens such as Chelavoor Venu, who popularised quality cinema. He also invited filmmaker Adoor Gopalakrishnan back to his institute, from where the latter had resigned as chairman a few years ago.

Festival director and Kerala State Chalachitra Academy Chairman Premkumar, in his address, supported Adoor’s recent statement that filmmakers, irrespective of gender or community background, need proper training in the craft of cinema. He also said that the ‘freedom of expression’ was not the freedom to spread lies, and that every artist had a responsibility to society.

Mayor Beena Philip presided over the event. MLA Thottathil Raveendran was the guest of honour. Actors Sudheesh and Kukku Parameshwaran, besides officials of the Academy were present. Meenakshi Jayan, who bagged the best actress title at the Shanghai International Film Festival, and Gopikrishnan Varma, who played a pivotal role in the Hindi movie Sitare Zameen Par, were honoured on the occasion.

The Seed of the Sacred Fig by Iranian filmmaker Mohammed Rasoolof was the inaugural film of the four-day festival. It had bagged special jury recognition at the Cannes Film Festival. The film is the story of a mother and two daughters against the backdrop of the mandatory hijab rule in Iran. The director now lives in exile in Germany after the Islamic Republic of Iran sentenced him to eight years of imprisonment and whippings as punishment for making this movie.

The RIFFK features 58 films in nine different categories from different parts of the world. As many as 15 films are being screened in three theatres in the city on the second day of the festival.