Banning The Kerala Story in the state ‘not a good precedent’: FEUOK

Chennai: A movie exhibitors’ association in Kerala has come out against the call for stopping the release of the controversial movie The Kerala Story in the state.

Even as the movie gathered criticism long before its release, both the ruling and the opposition parties in Kerala called for stopping its release.

The Kerala Story reportedly surrounds what it claims 32,000 women from Kerala joining IS whereas the official records show no such data, according to India Today.

The tidbits of the story available to the media tell that the movie is about how young women were brainwashed into joining the Islamic State (IS) and taken to countries like Syria and Afghanistan.

In the thick of the demand for banning it, The Film Exhibitors United Organisation of Kerala (FEUOK) said that banning The Kerala Story is ineffective because people will watch the film on OTT anyways.

Suresh Shenoy of FEUOK, who owns a theater complex in Kochi, said that banning a film was not a good precedent, adding that it is like censorship, according to the report.

Meanwhile, the ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF) and the Opposition United Democratic Front (UDF) have opposed the release of this film in the state.

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan in a Facebook said that even the trailer of the movie gives the impression that it was made with the aim of communal polarization.

Vijayan added that the movie was made by the Sangh Parivar to spread hate propaganda to place Kerala as the centre of religious extremism.

Meanwhile, Saji Cheriyan who is Kerala’s culture and youth affairs minister said in a Facebook post that the movie is an attempt by Sangh Parivar ‘to destroy the secular fabric of the state.’

The Kerala Story, written and directed by Sudipto Sen, will be released in theatres on May 5.