Filmmaker Hansal Mehta has reacted to the anti-Bollywood sentiment saying that “it is disturbing”, referring to several Hindi films having faced backlash from a section of the people leading to a dismal box office, this year.

In an interview, the Aligarh (2016) director said, “The kind of stuff that is being written on social media, some of it even surreptitiously and otherwise, with the endorsement of some of our own colleagues, is disturbing. What is happening in this diversion, this madness, is that our fear is getting the better of us in being able to tell our stories the way we want to, in making the films the way we want to. It is a transitory phase and we will emerge out of it.”

Calling the Hindi film industry a “resilient” one, Mehta, while talking to Indian Express, added that a lot of the hatred towards Bollywood is ”very manufactured” on social media.

“What is important is to not lose focus of our main job, which is to tell stories, whatever the counter point, whether your film is an out-and-out propaganda, or it is completely counter to the propaganda that is being fed to us,” he stated, adding that in the quest to serve a certain agenda, “we have forgotten that we are actually making films for audiences”.