Vivek Agnihotri

Agnihotri started his career with the advertising agencies Ogilvy and McCann, and served as creative director for campaigns of Gillette and Coca Cola.[5][6] In 1994, he became involved with the directing and production of several television serials; his work was positively received.[5][6][10][11][12]

Agnihotri debuted in Bollywood with Chocolate (2005), a remake of the 1995 Hollywood neo-noir crime thriller The Usual Suspects. Critical reception of the movie was negative,[13][14] and the film fared poorly at box office.[15][16] Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal is about an all-Asian football team in the United Kingdom that wins trophies while fighting on-field discrimination and the local municipality that wants to sell the team's ground.[17][18] It received poor reception from critics[19] and was a flop.[20][21][16]

Hate Story received mixed critical reception[22] and fared moderately at the box office.[23] Buddha in a Traffic Jam featured his wife Pallavi[24] and premiered at Mumbai International Film Festival in 2014;[25] it was received unfavorably by critics[26] and severely under-performed at the box office.[27][28] Junooniyat was also subject to poor reviews[29] and fared similarly.[30]

Agnihotri's 2014 erotic thriller Zid received poor reviews[31] but did average business at the box office.[32] However, Agnihotri has since claimed that credit for direction and screenplay was wrongly attributed to him, and that he was not involved with the film.[33] The Tashkent Files received mostly mixed reviews from critics but became a sleeper box-office hit.[34][35] Agnihotri was felicitated by the Indian Film & Television Directors’ Association for the movie.[36]

In 2018, Agnihotri claimed that has received threats for using the name Mohammad in his short film Mohammad and Urvashi.[37][38]

As of early 2020, Agnihotri is working on The Kashmir Files, a film chronicling the "unreported exodus of Kashmiri Hindus".[39][40][41]

Filmography of Agnihotri

Film name	Producer	Director	Screen writer	Release
Chocolate		Y	Y	2005
Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal		Y		2007
Hate Story		Y		2012
Zid		Y	Y	2014
Buddha in a Traffic Jam	Y	Y	Y	2016
Junooniyat		Y	Y	2016
The Tashkent Files	Y	Y	Y	2019
The Kashmir Files	Y	Y	Y	2021

In 2017, Agnihotri was selected as convenor by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting in the preview committee of 48th International Film Festival of India.[42] The same year, he was selected as member on board of India's Central Board of Film Certification.[43][44]

On 15 September 2020, Agnihotri was appointed as cultural representative at Indian Council for Cultural Relations.[45] He would represent Indian Cinema at ICCR.[46]

Agnihotri has been frequently associated with the right wing and pro-BJP people by media but he rejects these descriptions and self-identifies as "India-Wing".[47][48][49][50]

In 2018, Vivek wrote Urban Naxals: The Making of Buddha in a Traffic Jam,[51][52][53] in which he described individuals in academia and media who were allegedly colluding with Naxalites in a bid to overthrow the Indian government and were thus "invisible enemies of India" as "Urban Naxals".[54][55]

Critics said the term is "vague rhetoric" that is designed to discredit intellectuals who are critical of the establishment and political right and to stifle dissent.[56][57] Reviews in the Organiser and The New Indian Express had praised the work.[55] The Union Minister of Human Resource Development Smriti Irani endorsed Agnihotri's views of Jadavpur University and Jawaharlal Nehru University for having refused to screen Buddha in a Traffic Jam.[58]

Bollywood actress Tanushree Dutta accused Agnihotri of inappropriate behaviour during the filming of Chocolate. He allegedly asked her to strip and dance to give expression cues to her male co-star Irrfan Khan during a close-up shot and retreated only after Irrfan and Suniel Shetty rebuffed him. Agnihotri refuted the allegations as "false and frivolous", and filed a defamation case against Dutta.[59][60] Sattyajit Gazmer, the film's assistant director, has also refuted Tanushree's allegations.[61][62][63]

Fact checkers have noted Agnihotri to have shared misleading content from his Twitter account.[64][65] In September 2018, Twitter locked his account until he agreed to delete a tweet abusing Swara Bhaskar. In response to Swara calling out politician P. C. George, who called an alleged rape victim a prostitute, Vivek tweeted "Where is the placard - '#MeTooProstituteNun'?". The tweet was interpreted as calling Swara a prostitute. Agnihotri defended his tweet and said he was making a point about the placarding by liberals at selective instances of alleged perpetrators belonging to the Hindu community.[66]