Film Federation’s Guarded Response to Rawail-Palekar Controversy

The Film Federation tries to end the controversy between Rahul Rawail and the Oscar jury panel’s head Amol Palekar

The Film Federation of India has given an extremely guarded response to the ongoing controversy between Rahul Rawail and Amol Palekar.

While we would not like to comment on Mr Rawail’s opinions which are his own, what we would have appreciated is a situation where he could have spoken to the FFI President and other senior officials before going to the media.
– Supran Sen, Secretary General, Film Federation of India

Rahul Rawail stirred up a controversy after recently resigning from the jury panel which selected India’s official entry for the Oscars, calling the jury’s chairperson, Amol Palekar, ‘obnoxious’ in a tweet. Rawail also mentioned that Palekar hated the film Court, which was selected as India’s entry. The filmmaker also alleged that there was some manipulation done during the voting process.

While Amol Palekar has chosen not to respond against Rawail’s allegations, the Film Federation of India, which authorizes the formation of the jury panel has responded with a statement on the issue. The statement (reproduced below) however does not delve into what exactly went wrong between Rawail and Palekar, which forced him to resign from the jury.

As you are aware, Film Federation of India has selected Court as India’s official entry to the Academy Awards in the Best Foreign Language category.

Post our selection, although the film selected has been appreciated in all quarters and the jury has been unanimous in their choice, there have been a few allegations levelled by a senior and highly respected member of our film fraternity Shri Rahul Rawail who unfortunately choose to resign from the jury towards the end of the process citing personal differences.

While we would not like to comment on Mr Rawail’s opinions which are his own, what we would have appreciated is a situation where he could have spoken to the FFI President and other senior officials before going to the media.

Mr Rawail has however mentioned in all his statements that he is very happy with the selection of Court and his fellow jury members, a fact which we appreciate. We would like to maintain that all the norms and regulations governing the selection process were followed and the Federation is happy with the process.

I would also like to make a firm statement that Film Federation of India’s Honorary General Secretary Shri C Kalyan, I in my capacity as Secretary General and our Deputy Secretary Mr Anindya Dasgupta were present during the final proceedings to select India’s entry and we did not see anything amiss in the way it was conducted.

To conclude, it is our appeal to all our media friends and the members of the film fraternity to focus on the positives. Let us all get behind Court and its quest as it seeks to try and bring some glory to our Country.

Supran Sen
Secretary General
Film Federation of India