Priya Gupta (BOMBAY TIMES; April 27, 2015)

Anurag Kashyap is passionate about what he does and is a cutting-edge filmmaker who loves to try out new things and launch and work with new actors. On Sunday, a video of the bold and modern-minded actor Radhika Apte (who got a lot of appreciation for her role in Badlapur), showing her frontal nude from below went viral. Anurag Kashyap felt not just angry but responsible towards her as it was in his short film directed for the international market that Radhika agreed to take this bold step. But as is always the case, a few seconds of the 20-minute film that Anurag has directed was taken out, and out of context put up online and was being forward ed as messages on WhatsApp. A disturbed and angry Anurag putting it in context told us, “There is a short film of 20 minutes that I had been commissioned to direct (there are 6 other directors from different parts of the world who have also directed different films that will eventually form a part of one big film that is yet to be released). This film was with subtitles and meant for release only in the international market. My story was inspired by a true story and is a very powerful film. It was very difficult to make this short film due to this little sequence in the film of a few seconds that involves the actress to lift her dress and expose her lower front part and needed that very minor partial nudity front shot. It took us so much time to do it in a non-sexual way, as it is meant to be absolutely non-sexual and we took all the care we could. It was not easy to find an actor who is brave enough to participate in it. The entire shooting crew was women as we knew that we were making something as sensitive as this. And there were girls at every stage of the post-production. At every stage of the post-production, that part was either sent blank or pixelated before being sent. So, nobody even knew who is a part of the film. And everybody assumes that since it is an Indian film, it will always be pixelated. After taking all the care, the film was delivered to New York a month back. And then, all of a sudden after a month from nowhere, this video popped up online. It has to be some Indian guy there otherwise other material from other sources that is much more sexual is available to the West and something like this does not get them excited. I had shown the film before sending it to many of my friends including Vikramaditya Motwane's mother and she cried as she felt it was so powerful and we needed to put out something like this. Radhika Apte herself was so proud of it. But when you put out a video like this without context, people start making jokes on it. You try to take a step forward as a filmmaker, they take you five steps back. And she feels victimised and I feel responsible. I called up our police commissioner Rakesh Maria as soon as I came to know of it and he immediately acted upon it. He immediately called ACP crime branch Mr Prasanna and he had put the cyber crime branch to work on it on priority. I am confident that they will eventually catch the guy who started it. They have written to Facebook and WhatsApp also. We want that something like this should not happen in the future. For someone's one second of fun, he has caused so much damage. When you see the video in context, it makes you question some things and makes you numb but out of context it gives various meanings. Radhika is today one of the bravest actresses we have who is so forward thinking. You look at her and you want more people to be like her but this video just pulls you back as many people will not attempt to do things like this again after such incidents. For this one particular scene we were so careful that we even recreated the entire set in a secluded place so that we could shoot in a completely closed atmosphere. We took so much precaution. I am very angry and am going to spend the rest of my life to find this guy.