After delivering an outstanding address at the famed Capitol Hill, writer-director Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri and his actor-wife Pallavi Joshi recently participated in the Atlanta Peace March in the United States. Vivek and Pallavi are currently in the United States on a month-long tour of special screenings of their film “The Kashmir Files” in various cities.
The duo’s participation in the Peace Walk, which began at the Gandhi Statue and ended at Dr. Martin Luther King’s memorial, was a symbolic gesture. Sharing his thoughts on the same, Vivek said, “The Kashmir Files is based on the genocide of Kashmiri pandits in 1990. Nobody has made a film based on this subject before this but I just wanted to tell you why we are in the US even before the film has released in India.”
He also explained why he wants to promote the film in the United States. “The theme of the film is right to justice and we believe that in democracy, the most fundamental pillar is justice and the Kashmiri Pandits haven’t got justice and we thought this film can become the soft power and it can enlighten people outside India to understand how hundreds and thousands of people were forced to not just leave their homes but they were killed. It happened because there are some evil people who do not understand the value of humanity. And that’s why with this film, we tried to show to the world the importance of humanity and the right to justice,” he added.
Speaking of the research into the subject, Agnihotri said he and his wife Pallavi Joshi had been doing research on the subject for four years. “We found the truth about the pain of the people there, the problem there, and felt how the story of Kashmir is such an integral part of humanity,” he said. Producer and actor Joshi said, “Our research on the subject began in 2019. “We reached out to the first generation victims and their families. No one had earlier done long interviews with them in the manner of the long war tribunals,” she said, adding, “A lot of people do not know how big the issue of the Kashmiri Pandits is.”
The Kashmir Files is a forthcoming Indian Hindi-language film written and directed by Vivek Agnihotri that stars Mithun Chakraborty and Anupam Kher. The film depicts the flight of Kashmiri Pandits. The film will be released in theatres globally on January 26, 2022, to coincide with India’s Republic Day.
Following the success of The Tashkent Files, filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri completed the script for Kashmir Files after conducting considerable study on the 1990 genocide of Kashmiri Hindus. The script was completed by Agnihotri, who was stationed in an undisclosed location in the Himalayas. On 14 August 2019, Agnihotri announced the film with its first look poster saying, “the film will be an honest investigation into one of the biggest human tragedies”.