Filmmaker Aisha Sultana has hit out at producer Beena Kasim for delaying the release of her film Flush. Speaking at a press meet at the Ernakulam Press Club on Thursday, Aisha said that despite the Censor Board's approval, Beena does not want to release Flush since the film features dialogues against the central government. Beena Kasim is the wife of Lakshadweep BJP’s general secretary Muhammad Kasim.
Lakshadweep-based Aisha, who has been quite vocal about issues in the islands, made headlines in 2021 when she was slapped with a sedition case for her comments against Lakshadweep administrator Praful Khoda Patel.
Initially the film was to be produced by Anand Payyannur but on Beena’s insistence and with mutual consent, the film was taken over by the latter. Even during shoot and pre-shoot period Aisha tried to narrate the plot but Beena hardly wanted to listen, the filmmaker said. When the shoot began on February 8, 2021, the producer couldn’t reach the location, but her husband inspected the spot and called Aisha saying that the shoot should be wrapped up in five days. She did not approve of this and that is when troubles started, Aisha said, adding that things went missing from the shooting location. “There were only 40-50 people and it was a struggle completing the shoot,” she said. When the team returned from the shoot, Aisha met Beena for the first time and since then there have been disagreements regarding the film.
Aisha said Flush is an expression of what Lakshadweep wants and what kind of support it seeks from the administration. She added that unlike The Kerala Story, the recent controversial film on alleged forced conversions of Hindu women, Flush is a movie about the Lakshadweep evacuations which is an issue that the public already knows. Aisha alleged that the producer might be under pressure from the BJP to block the film's release.
Aisha revealed that the feel-good movie indirectly takes a stand against Lagoon Villa, a multi-crore tourism villa project that some experts feel might affect the fragile ecological balance of the islands. “It is easy for me to do more commercial films, but Lakshadweep really needs movies like this; there are so many problems there that need to be addressed,” she said.
The filmmaker plans to release the movie on YouTube and her Facebook page, if she cannot reach a consensus with the producer in a month's time.
