Hrithik Roshan's Kites Banned In Tamil Nadu

When Hrithik Roshan landed in Colombo last week, he had no clue that his participation in the IIFA gala would lead to screening of his just-released movie Kites being disrupted in Chennai theatres. The actor was visibly upset when the news reached him in Colombo last Sunday. He pointed out that they were there on behalf of the Indian film industry, and so should be supported.

Earlier, miffed with the Bollywood stars for flying down to Sri Lanka and thereby betraying innocent Tamilians who had been killed in large numbers during last year's civil war, the South Indian Film Chamber of Commerce (SIFCC) had registered its strong protest and even threatened to ban their forthcoming releases. However, L Suresh, general secretary of SIFCC, asserts that his organisation had nothing to do with the disruption of Kites' screenings. "Certain political parties had written to the theatres and what happened was spearheaded by them," he asserts. "We have not sought any ban on Kites or any other film or actor. I've spoke to Amit Khanna of Reliance Big Entertainment and clarified our stand."

Too late to change

But Suresh, along with C Kalyan, President of the Chamber, and G Siva, general secretary of the Film Employees Federation of South India (FEFSI), had come to Mumbai last month to convince his counterparts in the city against visiting Lanka for the IIFA weekend in June.

The trio met Manmohan Shetty, President of Film and Television Producers Guild, filmmakers Yash Chopra, Ramesh Sippy and JP Dutta, film financier Ratan Jain, and officials of Wizcraft, who were organising the IIFA events, along with other Bollywood personalities on the IIFA advisory board. Suresh says that while all of them sympathised with the plight of Sri Lankan Tamils, they insisted that it was too late to shift the venue, as "they were bound by contractual obligations".

He insists that they did try to put across their point of view that despite slaughtering innocent Tamilians, the Lankan government was trying to promote the misconception that all is well: "We reasoned this was not the time to do a show like IIFA and show our solidarity with our neighbouring country."

When Bollywood turned a deaf ear to their pleas, the SIFCC threatened a boycott of Bollywood movies featuring any star who had been a part of IIFA. However, Suresh hastens to add that the Chamber is yet to decide on its next course of action.

Would Raajneeti be targetted next because Ranbir Kapoor and Arjun Rampal had flown to Colombo? He says, "We don't want to add fuel to the fire. There's no other big film releasing this Friday and next week's release is Raavan. None of the cast and crew attended IIFA so we are in no hurry to decide on our next move. As and when the Chamber does, we will make a formal announcement."

We tried contacting Sanjeev Lamba of Reliance big Entertainment to comment on the Kites incident but despite repeated reminders, he didn't revert to our text messages.