http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Friday_%282005_film%29
Anurag Kashyap’s Black Friday is a commendable achievment. The film, an introspection on the 1993 Bombay blasts which left around 300 dead is as unbiased as one can get. Reviewed rapturously well at various international frestivals, this was something I’d been looking forward to for sometime.
The film was completed in 2004 and premiered at Locarno but took over 2 years to get released in India. Reason being that the perpetrators of the crime (those named in the film) asked for a stay saying that public opinion would get biased. I find it amazing that they still justify their actions like that. Flawed as our judicial system is, the film didn’t get released till early this year.
You would expect people to flock to see this film but instead, nobody bothered. Reason: there wasn’t enough entertainment or that it felt too much like a documentary.
It’s sad that such efforts go in vain. Black Friday is one of those films that actually manages to ask questions and state facts as they are. Technically brilliant (though there are a few noticeable flaws like the 2003 model Toyota Corolla etc…), well acted and thoroughly researched, this is perhaps one of the best efforts of Indian Cinema that also manages to work well as a documentary.
In case you didn’t know, Tiger Memon and his underworld associates who orchestrated the conspiracy are yet to be caught.
April 24, 2007
Its not just the case of Black Friday.. Even a film like “Parzania” which simply tells a story of a Parsi couple losing their child during the madness has been prevented from being screened in parts of the country. Dude, all this has got nnothing to do with the reasons dished out by the government. It all boils down to some jackass politicians finding the comments disturbing enough to accept it being showed to the common public.