NFDC, govt bodies wasted taxpayers' money for 60 years, claims Sudipto Sen

At the recently concluded CineTalkies event organized by the Union culture ministry, filmmaker Sudipto Sen, who is a known name in Independent filmmaking in India, accused the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC) of wasting taxpayers' money for six decades.

"NFDC was set up in 1956-57 and its purpose was to spread awareness about cinema all over India, but in the last 60 years NFDC, the Directorate of Film Festivals (DFF), the Children's Film Society of India (CFSI) and many such governmental bodies have used more than Rs1,15,000 crore rupees of taxpayers' money and achieved nothing," he said. The filmmaker did not cite any sources in support of his statement.

Sen also claimed that filmmakers of a certain ideology were not giving a clear picture of the country and it is only now that things have begun to change.

"A few people with a certain ideology were running the film industry since Independence and misguiding our viewers," he said. "Finally, after so many years, people like us have got a chance to bring a change in this trend and show our audience the actual power of cinema." Sen appeared to be referring to the change in the film industry after the BJP government came to power in 2014.

The filmmkaer was speaking at the session titled 'cinema as a soft power' at CineTalkies, which was held on the University of Mumbai's Kalina campus. Popular filmmakers Om Raut and Abhishek Jain were the other speakers at the session.

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Sen also claimed that cinema was turned into a medium of entertainment alone by filmmakers of the 'leftist' ideology to keep audiences away from its power. "I think cinema is the strongest power if used intelligently," he said. "Indian filmmakers of the leftist ideology realized this quite early on, and that is why they used cinema as a source of entertainment and only to spread their own ideology, because they didn't want people to realize the actual power of cinema.

"That's why they were content with showing heroes and heroines running and hiding behind trees. We were constantly made aware by these filmmakers that cinema and real life have nothing in common. Cinema is just fantasy. Since Independence, Indian cinema, especially Hindi cinema, has been intentionally giving us the wrong message that cinema and our life are two different things."

Sen, who has been part of the film industry for two decades, also criticized the tropes seen in mainstream Hindi cinema, saying they are detrimental to society. "Nowadays people are fine with making their kids dance to the tunes of 'item numbers'. Just like those Kashmiri anti-nationals who give speeches against our country and government, parents who make their kids dance to 'Chikni Chameli' are equal traitors of this nation."