The controversy over Vivek Agnihotri’s upcoming film The Bengal Files deepened on Saturday after the Kolkata Police allegedly stopped the official trailer launch at a city hotel.
The event was first planned at a five-star hotel, later shifted to another luxury hotel on EM Bypass reportedly due to “political pressure.” But minutes after it began, chaos broke out when senior police officers intervened.
Agnihotri was seen arguing with the police, claiming that they cut electricity to the hall and even confiscated the laptop meant for the trailer screening. Surrounded by policemen along with his wife, actress-producer Pallavi Joshi, the director told journalists, “This is Bengal. Everything happens here with the direction of some invisible fingers. The truth is not allowed to be shown. We are not thieves or robbers, we make films. If this is not dictatorship, then what is it? If this is not fascism, then what is it?”
The police, however, said they had only come “after receiving some information” and denied any official action against the event.
Trinamool Congress (TMC) IT cell chief Debangshu Bhattacharya dismissed the filmmaker’s allegations, saying, “If any hall does not want to show such content, it is their decision. The Trinamool Congress has not asked anyone to stop the trailer. The director should provide proof of such claims.”
Meanwhile, legal trouble has already mounted. A complaint was filed at Lake Town police station against Agnihotri, Joshi, and producer Abhishek Agarwal. When the matter reached the Calcutta High Court, Justice Joy Sengupta issued an interim stay on the FIR till August 26, with the next hearing scheduled for August 19.
The Bengal Files—a Hindi-language film focusing on communal violence in undivided Bengal in the 1940s—is set to release on September 5, 2025 (Teachers’ Day), according to its producers.
The film, made in Hindi, has already drawn comparisons with Agnihotri’s earlier controversial work, The Kashmir Files, which was labelled “propaganda” and “vulgar” by the IFFI jury head in 2022.
