Netflix continues setting a dangerous precedent by abandoning another finished movie

Perhaps taking a page out of the Discovery Plus playbook (it cancelled Batgirl), Netflix recently cancelled a movie of its own, although Indian politics may have also played a part.

The completed film Tees by Indian director Dibakar Banerjee has officially been shelved by the streamer, according to Deadline, and now Banerjee is looking for a buyer, but that process is complicated by Netflix’s decision not to allow the film to be shown at festivals. The film, which is in Hindi, was shot in 2020 and completed in 2022.

The International Film Festival of Rotterdam (IFFR) invited Banerjee to screen the film, but he couldn’t get Netflix to approve it. Netflix said it gave Banerjee permission to shop the film around, but it doesn’t want it at festivals if it’s not going to release it.

Ever since he turned it in, Banerjee said Netflix just sat on it with no plans for a release before eventually deciding to eschew it all together.

“Netflix has never given me any other reason except they don’t know if this is the right time to release the film,” Banerjee said. “Given what happened with Tandav, the only conclusion to reach is that Netflix is reluctant to release the film out of fear of being similarly targeted. But the film I have made is very different to the web series in question.”  

Tandav is an Amazon Prime Video release accused of “hurting religious sentiments of a section of the audience, especially with its now-controversial scene featuring Mohd Zeeshan Ayyub, who, dressed as lord Shiva, was seen mouthing lines about ‘azaadi,’” according to the Indian Express.

Eventually, criminal charges were filed against Prime Video. It’s possible that this news has made Netflix more cautious about releasing the film.

The movie was announced in 2019 under the original title Freedom. It’s “the story of an Indian family interwoven with the personal, ideological and sexual history of India.” It’s also one of several movies that have stalled due to the increasingly fragile political situation in the country.

The movie’s set during three different time periods: Kashmir during political unrest in the ’90s; a daughter trying to buy an apartment in Mumbai but unable to do so because of her religion; and a dystopian future in which a son tries to get a novel published.

It stars Naseeruddin Shah, Kalki Koechlin, Huma Qureshi, Shashank Arora, and Neeraj Kabi. Banerjee said the film isn’t politically troubling or even that controversial at all.

“It’s not about any incendiary incidents  – it’s about the daily life of an average middle-class urban family over three generations. But now my story is becoming eerily similar to one of the protagonists in the film,” he said. “I also believe this is my best film to date. Although it has universal themes, it was made for an audience that remembers my other films, and is attuned to watching a film made by me, so it saddens me that they won’t be able to see it.”