The release of Aditya Dhar’s Dhurandhar 2 has reignited the discourse, amidst the film’s stupendous box office success, around its overt political commentary and allegations of it being a ‘propaganda’ film. At the ongoing International Film Festival Delhi (IFFD), Anupam Kher chose to address the subject, defending the Ranveer Singh starrer spy-actioner against its critics.

Interacting with the media, the veteran actor said, “I think we should ignore people who are calling cinema propaganda films. We are putting too much energy into them; they are redundant people, they are irrelevant people.”

Crediting the audience for championing films like Dhurandhar, Anupam Kher also mentioned his 2022 hit The Kashmir Files, which too received similar criticism from certain sections of audience. “Let’s celebrate the success of The Kashmir Files; let’s celebrate the success of Dhurandhar. People are not idiots who are going to see a 12 o’clock show, housefull. People go to see the film because they like it. And I think we should say ‘rest in peace’ to people who are sort of calling it a propaganda film,” he added. 

Anupam Kher was present at IFFD to receive the Best Director award for his film Tanvi The Great, which released theatrically in July last year, and had its OTT premiere earlier this month.

The veteran actor was last seen in Vivek Agnihotri’s The Bengal Files. His upcoming films include Khosla Ka Ghosla 2, which is tentatively slated for theatrical release in August this year.