Somy Ali Calls Out Double Standards on Creative Freedom in Indian Cinema

Actor-turned-filmmaker and No More Tears founder Somy Ali has stirred fresh debate in the Indian film industry with a pointed public statement accusing Bollywood of applying creative freedom selectively - defending it when it suits the powerful, and abandoning it when accountability is at stake.

In her statement, aimed squarely at filmmakers, actors, writers and film students, Ali revisited two very different cinematic case studies to make her point.

She began with the 1982 film Arth, pointing out that Parveen Babi was living with a diagnosed case of paranoid schizophrenia at the time her life became fodder for the screen. "Filmmakers turned her living mental illness into cinema while she had no capacity to give consent," Ali said. "That was allowed. That was defended as creative freedom."

She then turned to Sanjay Dutt's biopic, noting the stark contrast in how that story was told. According to Ali, Dutt was "in full control of his mind and could give or withhold consent" over what the film showed and what it left out - and that, too, was met with acceptance. She acknowledged that Dutt had committed a crime and served his sentence, adding that "the system applied consequences."

Her real objection, however, is with what she sees as an uneven standard applied to films that examine other legal cases - specifically pointing to the long-running blackbuck poaching case. "When a film attempts to examine a case in which a court has already recorded a conviction for the killing of blackbucks, the same system suddenly discovers its limits," she said, noting that the conviction dates to 2018 for a crime from the 1990s, while the accused remains out on bail. "Where is the same standard of justice?"

Ali, who says she has trained at three film academies, framed the issue as one of selective outrage rather than genuine principle. "I understand creative freedom. I also understand selective outrage," she said, calling on students, young writers and young actors to question what lesson the industry is teaching the next generation. "That creative freedom exists only when it does not threaten the powerful? That mega-stars who can afford the best lawyers operate under a different set of rules?"

She was equally critical of the industry's collective silence on the matter, describing many within it as having quietly fallen in line. "Like toy soldiers, many have simply obeyed the unofficial order not to engage with inconvenient voices, all while wrapping themselves in the language of humanity," she said.

Ali was careful to frame the issue as bigger than any single film or individual. "This is about whether Indian cinema still has the courage to look at difficult truths, or whether it has decided that some subjects are permanently off-limits because the people involved are too rich, too famous, or too well-protected," she said.

She closed her statement with a direct appeal to the next generation of filmmakers, warning that inherited silence has a cost. "If you accept these double standards now, you will spend your careers working inside them," she said. "The film industry must decide: either creative freedom applies to everyone, or it is just a privilege reserved for those who can buy their way out of consequences. The public is watching. The next generation is watching. History will record which side you chose."