Gulshan Devaiah slams Vivek Agnihotri for 'exploiting somebody's pain and trauma' with The Kashmir Files

Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri’s The Kashmir Files opened to polarising response at the time of its release in 2022, emerging a great success at the box office. However, in an interview with Siddharth Kanan, actor Gulshan Devaiah has criticised the filmmaker for exploring somebody’s pain to market the film. (Also read: Vivek Agnihotri reacts to action against Arundhati Roy, posts The Kashmir Files scene clip: ‘Villain was based on…’)

Despite the film being mired in controversies, the film went on to amass a lifetime collection of Rs. 252.90 crore as opposed to its budget of ₹15 crore.

Gulshan slams

The actor, who has previously worked with the filmmaker on Hate Story, didn’t like Vivek’s way of marketing the film.

“He is a marketing guy and he has a huge following. He is immensely successful now, as a film-maker, as an author. But yes, there are some things I am critical of. The example that I was writing about The Kashmir Files, they use a lot of footage of people who have gone through that pain. Those who watched the film could recall the time of the Kashmiri Pandit exodus and what all happened with them. So they were broadcasting that on social media as publicity. I feel that is exploitation,” Gulshan said.

He added, “You are exploiting the actual pain and trauma of somebody. I am personally okay with that. I feel you are exploiting their real emotions, to publicise your film, which maybe is about them. That is in the zone of exploitation for me. On this one thing, I am critical about that film. Otherwise, it was an okay film and I think he is an okay director at best.”

About the film

The film is produced by Vivek in association with Abhishek Agarwal Arts and Zee Studio. The Kashmir Files stars Anupam Kher, Mithun Chakraborty, Pallavi Joshi, Puneet Issar, Darshan Kumar, Prakash Belawadi, Mrinal Kulkarni, and Chinmay Mandlekar in key roles. It is allegedly based on true events amid the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from the Valley around 1990. Vivek received the Nargis Dutt Award for Best Feature Film on National Integration category for the film.