Responding to criticism of The Kashmir Files by Israeli filmmaker and IFFI jury chief Nadav Lapid, the Ambassador of Israel to India Naor Gilon said Lapid “should be ashamed”. Gilon added that he wants to “apologize to our hosts for the bad manner in which we repaid them for their generosity.”
A day after Israeli filmmaker and jury chief at the International Film Festival of India (IFFI), Nadav Lapid, described the controversial movie ‘The Kashmir Files’ as “propaganda” and “vulgar”, Israel’s ambassador to India Naor Gilon said Lapid has abused the Indian invitation to chair the panel in the worst way and “should be ashamed”.
Gilon wrote on Twitter, “An open letter to #NadavLapid following his criticism of #KashmirFiles. It’s not in Hebrew because I wanted our Indian brothers and sisters to be able to understand. It is also relatively long so I’ll give you the bottom line first. YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED. Here’s why..”
“In Indian culture they say that a guest is like God. You have abused in the worst way the Indian invitation to chair the panel of judges at @IFFIGoa as well as the trust, respect and warm hospitality they have bestowed on you.”
“Our Indian friends brought @lioraz and @issacharoff from @FaudaOfficial in order to celebrate the love in #India towards #Fauda and #Israel. I suspect that this is maybe also one of the reasons they invited you as an Israeli and me as the ambassador of Israel,” he said.
“I understand your need in retrospect to “justify” your behavior but I can’t understand why you told @ynetnews afterwards that the minister and I said on stage that there is similarity between our countries because “we fight a similar enemy and reside in a bad neighborhood” he said.
Gilon said, “We did speak about the similarities and closeness between our countries. The minister spoke about his visits to Israel, it being a Hi-Tech nation and the potential of combining this with the film industry. I spoke about the fact that we grew up watching Indian films. I also said that we should be humble when India, with such a great film culture, is consuming Israeli content (Fauda and more).”
“I’m no film expert but I do know that it’s insensitive and presumptuous to speak about historic events before deeply studying them and which are an open wound in India because many of the involved are still around and still paying a price,” he said.
Meanwhile, Consulate General of Israel Kobbi Shoshani said, “when I saw the film, tears came from my eyes. It was not an easy film to see.I think it was shown in Israel too. We’re Jews who suffered from horrible things&I think we’ve to share other’s suffering.”
