Veteran filmmaker Shekhar Kapur, who is best known for breathing life into the story of Phoolan Devi through his film Bandit Queen expressed his dismay after a streaming giant edited it sans consent. Shekhar took to X and while praising the Netflix series Adolescence spoke about the hurdles for freedom of expression even on OTT.
Shekhar Kapur’s Bandit Queen cut on OTT
Shekhar wrote on X, “I wonder if OTT platforms would let me make Bandit Queen the way I made it years ago. The Bandit Queen on Amazon Prime is unrecognisable from my film. Someone has cut it beyond recognition. And yet it carries my name as Director. And no one asked me! Are we lesser beings than Western Directors? Would they have the guts to cut a Chris Nolan film without his permission?”
Today’s @shekharkapur with your Hollywood successes would be allowed to make it. But the ShekharKapur before Bandit Queen would definitely not be allowed by any OTT to make Bandit Queen the way he wants to.
Cutting / Hacking your film without your permission is shocking to say…
— kunal kohli (@kunalkohli) March 18, 2025
Filmmakers react to Shekhar’s woes
Filmmaker Kunal Kohli wrote, “Today’s @shekharkapur with your Hollywood successes would be allowed to make it. But the Shekhar Kapur before Bandit Queen would definitely not be allowed by any OTT to make Bandit Queen the way he wants to. Cutting/Hacking your film without your permission is shocking, to say the least.”
Hansal Mehta also weighed in and said, “That is the point I’ve been trying to make @shekharkapur. Are we here to foster superior storytelling or to produce cattle feed? Leave the good stories, the innovative storytelling, the silences, the slow burn, the experiments, the audacity, the budgets to the superior minds from the West. Welcome back to the days of colonisation.”
That is the point I’ve been trying to make @shekharkapur . Are we here to foster superior storytelling or to produce cattle-feed ? Leave the good stories, the innovative storytelling, the silences, the slow burn, the experiments, the audacity, the budgets to the superior minds… https://t.co/1hO7opcxs5
— Hansal Mehta (@mehtahansal) March 18, 2025
Shekhar Kapur’s work front
The director has made his mark in Hollywood as well as Bollywood. He started out as a filmmaker with Masoom in 1983. He later scored a blockbuster at the box office with his 1987 release Mr India. The international acclaim he won with his hard-hitting biopic of Phoolan Devi, Bandit Queen in 1994, helped him take his craft to the West. He made his Hollywood directorial debut with the Oscar-nominated Elizabeth (1998) and went on to make The Four Feathers (2002), and Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007), besides directing a segment of the 2008 anthology, New York, I Love You.
He is gearing up for the sequel of Masoom with Shabana Azmi, Naseeruddin Shah, and Manoj Bajpayee.
