Vivek Agnihotri says The Bengal Files facing ‘troubles’, plans to take legal action

Mumbai: Director Vivek Agnihotri has accused the West Bengal government and police officials of threatening theatre owners not to screen his film “The Bengal Files” in the eastern state, and said the producers are planning to take legal action.

The film, the concluding chapter in Agnihotri’s “The Files” trilogy after “The Tashkent Files” (2019) and “The Kashmir Files” (2022), revisits the communal riots of August 1946 in Kolkata.

The Bengal Files, slated to be released on Friday, features Mithun Chakraborty, Anupam Kher, Pallavi Joshi, Saswata Chatterjee and Darshan Kumarr.

“Whatever the West Bengal government is doing is illegal and unconstitutional. We are planning to file a writ petition, but will decide based on what happens tomorrow and accordingly we will take legal action,” he said, on the sidelines of the premier of the film on Thursday.

The filmmaker claimed that he is getting feedback from theatre owners in West Bengal that they were being threatened not to go ahead with the screening.

“A lot of theatre owners, including leading multiplex chains officials, have said that the police have been threatening them with dire consequences if they release the film. They are like, ‘what will we do if they barge in and destroy our property?’” he said.

“The film has been dubbed in Bengali because lakhs of Bengali people want to watch it," Agnihotri said.

The filmmaker’s actor-producer wife Pallavi Joshi said she has appealed to the President, Droupadi Murmu, seeking intervention in the matter.

“We have appealed to the President as well. As a woman, I have written to her personally, seeking a smooth release for our film,” she said.