Atanu Roy: Hailing Vivek Agnihotri’s film “Kashmir Files” as pathbreaking, eminent director Ram Gopal Varma says its impact will be felt for a long time, or maybe forever. “I think its impact will be there for a long time or maybe forever. Because the film has broken all conventions and norms. If we look at ‘RRR’, no one can imitate that because that’s too expensive. And being a small budget film, ‘The Kashmir Files’ making that kind of money is impressive. I think the impact of ‘The Kashmir Files’ on the film industry will be much more than ‘RRR’, to be honest,” Varma told UNI in an interview. Varma, widely known as RGV, has postponed the release of his film “dangerous” – earlier slated to hit the screens on Friday – citing “non-cooperation” from many theatres who refused to screen the movie because of its lesbian theme. The rescheduled release date is yet to be confirmed. Varma has already publicised ‘Dangerous’ as the first Indian Lesbian crime thriller. Asked from which point of view it Is different from ‘Fire’ or Malayalam celluloid venture ‘Sancharam’, he said, “The difference between these films and Dangerous is the time. After the repeal of Article 377 (of the Indian Penal Code that dealt with carnal intercourse against the order of nature), everything has been normalised. There remains no difference between them and us. A man falling in love with a woman or a man falling in love with a man is now the same. We are making so many films with male and female protagonists and the chemistry between them. I thought that I have to make a film where everything will be the same as a film demands but the lead pair happens to be lesbian”. “Earlier it was difficult for me to find actors. There were lots of taboos on this topic. It also happened that even after liking the story they refused to do the film. It’s also quite obvious that they would have thought of their family’s repercussions. Many actresses have problems with what people will say,” he said. The trailer of the film already grabbed eyeballs for the steamy scenes between two female protagonists played by Naina Ganguly and Apsara Rani. Reacting to whether the story demands such scenes, RGV said, “I wanted intimate scenes because if they only kiss they will look like friends and no one will register them as lesbians”. The director denied any real-life resemblance with the issues handled in the film and urges the audience to watch ‘Dangerous’ as a typical Bollywood fictional film. “I haven’t known any such lesbian couples in my life”, asserted the director of successful films like Company and Satya. Varma has dedicated his autobiographical book ‘Guns & Thighs’ to pornstar Tori Black along with personalities like Amitabh Bachchan, Bruce Lee, Urmila Matondkar and Ayn Rand. Later he made a film ‘God, Sex and Truth’ featuring another pornstar Mia Malkova. Being asked why he hasn’t cast Tori in his film, he said, “there is no proper reason behind that. Tori Black had just had a child at the time I was making ‘God, Sex and Truth’. So I cast Mia”. UNI XC SSP ARN
