Anurag Kashyap has been one of the most vocal supporters of director Sandeep Reddy Vanga, who was criticized by many Bollywood personalities as well as critics, saying his movie Animal promotes ‘toxic masculinity.’ Anurag Kashyap, who has been criticized for the realistic raw and violent nature of his older movies, has publicly backed Sandeep Reddy Vanga by posting photographs with him on his official Instagram account.
In the caption of his photograph, Anurag Kashyap called Sandeep Reddy Vanga, “The most misunderstood, judged and reviled filmmaker at the moment,” and added, “To me he is the most honest, vulnerable, and a lovely person.” Anurag Kashyap also dubbed Animal, “The biggest game changer of Hindi cinema in the longest time, and a film whose impact (good or bad) can’t be denied.”
Recently, in an interview with Zoom TV, Kashyap drew comparisons to his experience during the production of Bombay Velvet, saying that watching Vanga succeed gave him a sense of satisfaction. Kashyap said, “I like the guy. I have no problem with him. Unlike a lot of people in the industry who pretend to be someone they are not, he is honest. The former kind, I think, is even more toxic. But Vanga is an honest man. I don’t like anything more than honesty, no matter what others’ issues with honesty are. I love talking to him.”
Talking about Animal, Kashyap said, “No one can deny the impact Animal made. It made the action scenes we had seen in movies before seem fake. It changed so many things in terms of real action scenes, and it was an adult film of three and a half hours. They cut my film Bombay Velvet to two hours and fifty minutes and censored scenes because they were pushing for a U/A certificate. It is my most censored film, and Pahlaj Nihalani (the then chairman of the Central Board of Film Certification) personally made sure that he cut scenes from it. I got no support. I was under so much pressure during Bombay Velvet about the recovery and opening of the film. But it didn’t feel like mine anymore. I should have been stubborn like Sandeep and fought back to keep my version. You can argue with his creative vision, and he gives space to argue. But what do we do in general? We only attack and cancel people. We don’t discuss or debate.”
Lamenting further, Kashyap added, “I never had a support system. Some called me ‘manhoos‘ and ‘pagal.’ I was easily branded, and I felt so alone and isolated. I felt like everybody was isolating and attacking Sandeep instead of talking to him. My daughter was quite upset when I put up that post about Animal. My friends from the industry were upset, and I called them over to my house, and we had a long discussion about it. I want to call out the hypocrisy of these people who criticized Animal, abused and canceled the film, and then went and watched it, despite knowing what it’s about, and then double canceled it.”
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