Who Made ‘The Kerala Story’ & Why Were They Embroiled in Controversies Before?

Director of The Kerala Story, Sudipto Sen is an independent filmmaker. Some of his works include Aasma (2018), Lucknow Times (2015), and The Last Monk (2006).

What are the controversies around him?

In 2021, in an interview with Citti Media, the film’s director said that he arrived at that number (32,000) based on figures given to the Kerala Assembly by former Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy. However, the fact-checking news website AltNews reported that there was “no proof” to support this claim.

Even prior to the recent film, Sen had courted controversy.

In April 2018, Sen’s previous work, In the Name of Love, which is an hour-long documentary on the issue of alleged illegal religious conversion of women in Kerala, courted controversy.

Sen said that it was his patriotic duty to expose the manner in which thousands of girls were converted and trafficked abroad. Sudipto Sen also made his stance against the communism clear, stating that it has become increasingly irrelevant and that communism is fading away and “dying its own death.”

The Kerala Story is bankrolled by Sunshine Pictures Private Limited, founded by Vipul Amrutlal Shah. He is a producer and director of films and TV shows in India who has mostly backed stories that are centered around police officers, the Indian army, RAW agents, and terrorists. To mention a few, they are Akshay Kumar’s Holiday: A soldier is never off duty, John Abraham and Sonakshi Sinha’s Force 2, and the Commando franchise with Vidyut Jammwal in the lead.

What are the controversies around him?

In 2012, he courted controversy after speaking up about the “political gains” involved in the “overt regressive censorship” behind his film The Dirty Picture (TDP).

Vipul said, “When you can have bold shows like Iss Jungle Se Mujhe Bachao and Bigg Boss being aired, why not TDP, which had its cuts in place and had gotten a U/A certificate?”

Also, Elnaaz Norouzi of Sacred Games had accused Vipul of sexual harassment. In October 2018, during the #MeToo movement, the Iranian model-turned-actor alleged that Vipul made a sexual advance on her while they were “auditioning” for a part in his film Namaste England. He had, however, approached the IFTDA’s Internal Complaints Committee (ICC), which had gave him a clean chit in 2019, following an investigation.