Pallavi Joshi on ‘The Kashmir Files Unreported’: It was a gut-wrenching, tough show to make

New Delhi: Producer Pallavi Joshi, along with her husband and filmmaker Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri is set to bring an eye-opening and spine-chilling series titled ‘The Kashmir Files Unreported’, which is woven together through real life anecdotes, survivor testimonies and archived footages. Pallavi said that rewatching all those interviews for the series was not only “gut-wrenching”, but also “difficult”.

In 2022, the filmmaker duo had released their movie ‘The Kashmir Files’ that centred on the 1990 exodus of Kashmiri Hindus from Kashmir. Directed by Vivek, it starred Mithun Chakraborty, Anupam Kher, Darshan Kumar, and Pallavi.

Now, their upcoming series ‘The Kashmir Files Unreported’ delves into the historical, ethnical, and geopolitical details, encapsulating the events, mistakes, crimes and circumstances that led to the massacre and mass exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from the valley in the 1990s.

The narrative is captured via conversations with historians, experts, real life victims and their families. It unravels the unreported realities, facts and the truth behind the massacre and the exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits straight from the horses’ mouth.

On the making of the series, Pallavi shared: “If we’re talking about ‘The Kashmir Files’, it was a difficult subject to make a film on. We lived through the entire pain and grief while researching for the film and shooting it and when we thought that we will come out of it, we realised we have a docu-series to deliver.”

“To sit back in that editing room and rewatch all those interviews was not just gut-wrenching but also so difficult. The people who were watching the interviews didn’t know what was coming, but the second time when they were watching, they knew everything and yet they had to sit there and make those cuts, pick up those interviews. It was a very, very tough show to make,” she shared.

The film had received mixed reception with the storyline attracting criticism for attempting to recast established history and propagating Islamophobia.

Pallavi said: “The film doesn’t target Muslims at all. The film targets terrorism and who in India, in their right mind will support terrorism?”

“If the film was against Muslims, then we wouldn’t have shown the first scene in the movie where this little Abdul is helping little Shiva, and the same Abdul remembers his friend Shiva when he grows up, and when Krishna comes back to meet him. We have also mentioned that it was not only the Kashmiri Pandits who were killed during the genocide but Buddhists, Krishnans, Muslims, whoever raised their voice against terrorism was killed,” she shared.

Pallavi reiterated that the movie was a tale of the Kashmiri Pandits, their genocide, and their displacement from their homeland. “We mentioned that in the movie, so I don’t see why there was this hue and cry about this film being anti-Muslim. It certainly wasn’t. But it is not against Muslims, and if anyone is saying that I completely and absolutely deny it because it’s a fake narrative.”

She concluded: “We’re all Indians, and that’s why I want to tell Indian stories. The Hindu-Muslim narrative has been used to bring down the film and put a blot on Vivek’s name, but that’s not the case.”

The series also maps the centuries old journey of Kashmir, hailed as the paradise on earth, its significance to India, its people and culture and their evolution from being a melting pot of civilization and knowledge, to being repeatedly attacked, radicalised and systemically reduced to a warzone like condition of today.

Produced by Vivek Agnihotri and Pallavi Joshi’s, IamBuddha Entertainment and Media LLP, the seven-part series will premiere on August 11 on ZEE5.

–IANS