‘Creative freedom restricted by cloaking it in religion’

Award-winning filmmaker Jayaraj has been a genre hopper of sorts. From outright crowd-pleasers like Johnnie Walker and Thilakkam to the ambitious ‘Navarasa’ series, the filmmaker has swung between extremes while being pilloried for his alleged affinity towards right wing politics. Attending the Kochi leg of the International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK) where Haasyam, his penultimate work in the ‘Navarasa’ series, was screened in the International Competition section, Jayaraj talks about his works and the present climate of fear hampering creative freedom. There is a sense of fear that wasn’t there in the past. One has to think before doing anything. The creative freedom is being restricted by cloaking it in religion, which is the biggest tragedy of the supposedly progressive times. I try to steer away from potentially controversial things, which in itself is a lack of creative freedom.