Vivek Agnihotri, the director of a new movie titled The Vaccine War recently claimed that the film is being censored amid ongoing controversy surrounding the COVID-19 vaccine and mask mandates.
According to the Indian Express, Agnihotri recently wrote and directed The Vaccine War film after gaining fame from his release of The Kashmir Files, which focuses on the members of the Hindu religion known as Kashmiri Pandits and how they fled an area in India from Islamic militants. The movie, which was released in 2022, was seen by some as Islamophobic, while India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi encouraged residents to watch the film.
During his interview with Galatta Plus, a YouTube channel that "aims to talk about Indian Cinema from all parts of the country, without discrimination", Agnihotri spoke about his new film about how India handled COVID-19 and its development of the BBV152 vaccine but suggested that the film is being censored.
"People do so much YouTube-ing now. Yet, when such an important film like The Vaccine War is coming, and that too after I delivered a Rs 350-crore ($42M) movie which also created a significant impact, nobody has reviewed it because money is being paid and there's an embargo that nobody should utter our names," Agnihotri said during the interview, the Indian Express reported.
Agnihotri did not provide any further information in regard to his claims that the film is under an "embargo" and it is currently unclear exactly how the film is being suppressed.
Over the past few months, many in the U.S. have discussed the possible return to stricter COVID-19 vaccine and mask requirements as new cases have slightly increased. However, many conservatives have opposed returning to these COVID-19 precautions.
Many people in the U.S. have also recently claimed that The Sound of Freedom film, which focused on the story of former Homeland Security Investigations Agent Tim Ballard and his efforts to combat child sex trafficking, was also being suppressed and censored.
Shortly after the film was released, many social media users claimed that the AMC Theaters was trying to stop people from seeing it.
"I'm seeing a lot of reports that AMC Theaters is sabotaging people from seeing the movie 'Sound of Freedom.' The CEO of AMC Theaters is Adam Aron. Adam was a delegate to Bill Clinton's White House Conference on Travel and Tourism," Dr. Etiquette wrote on X, formerly Twitter, in July.
However, AMC Theaters CEO Adam Aron responded to these claims on X saying, "Sadly, conspiracy theorists are so prevalent in America," Aron tweeted. "So much garbage information is spread. More than ONE MILLION people have watched Sound of Freedom at AMC Theatres. More than at any other theatre chain on the planet. Yet people falsely claim otherwise. It is so bizarre."
Newsweek reached out to Agnihotri through his website for comment.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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