Political films are the flavour of Bollywood in 2019 ahead of Lok Sabha polls but according to filmmaker Prakash Jha these movies have no effect on elections.
While “Uri: The Surgical Strike” and “The Accidental Prime Minister” were the first releases of the new year, other films in the polarised political space to follow through are “Thackeray” and “The Tashkent Files”.
“The Accidental Prime Minister”, starring Anupam Kher as former prime minister Manmohan Singh and based on a book by his former media advisor, released amid accusations that it portrays the Gandhi family in poor light.
The Congress termed the film “propaganda” ahead of the general elections.
But Jha says labelling the films is not a new phenomenon as even his film, the critically-acclaimed “Raajneeti” (2010) was called a propaganda film.
“People will call films what they want to. They were hurt when I made ‘Raajneeti’. What propaganda will happen in ‘The Accidental Prime Minister’? All this propaganda will not affect the outcome of the elections,” the director told the agency.
Two biopics on Prime Minister Narendra Modi have been also announced, one by BJP MP Paresh Rawal and another with Vivek Oberoi in the lead.
And the filmmaker believes the trend shows that it is “an interesting subject and people are trying to make an interesting film on it”.
Meanwhile, Jha’s production “Fraud Saiyyan”, featuring Arshad Warsi and Saurabh Shukla, is slated to be released Friday.
