Screening Of Pak Films Banned In 4th DIFF After Pak Director Returns Award

30 November, New Delhi

Screening of Pakistani films has been banned at the fourth Delhi international film festival after a Pakistani director returned the award given to his film at last year’s edition of the festival. Khalid Hasan, the Pakistani director who won the award last year in the third Delhi film festival for his feature film Hotal, added to the award return bandwagon, which has witnessed several filmmakers return their awards to protest growing intolerance in the country.

Describing the decision of the Pakistani director to return his award as insulting, Ram Kishore Parcha, the founder president of DIFF said,”This is very insulting.Whatever is the situation in our country, we will deal with it, who are you? We have awarded you because you have done good work, returning an award is an insult. It means we have taken a wrong decision in awarding you.”

After the episode, the screening of Pakistani films has been banned in the fourth DIFF. ”Now we have taken a decision to not screen any of the Pakistani films in the fourth Delhi Film Festival. We had honored him for his work but returning the award for supporting someone is completely non-acceptable”, Parcha said. The fourth DIFF is scheduled to be held from December 5 to 10.