Naseeruddin Shah: 'A large share of a film's earnings is eaten away by the demons called distributors and exhibitors'

Veteran star Naseeruddin Shah‘s words always pierce through given how honest they often are. The actor spoke bluntly about a film’s success and its aftermath at the felicitation ceremony for the Lifetime Achievement Award for Cinema Projection. He said, “The bitter truth is that those who work the hardest while making a film, their remuneration is the lowest. They stand in water till their waist and look after the broken electric wires. They carry reflectors. They carry bags on their shoulders and climb on the top and remain there throughout the day; nobody asks them for water or tea. Their payment is one-thousandth of those who sit on chairs under the fan while having sherbet and show attitude.”

On distributors and exhibitors

The sad part is that this saga doesn’t end with the completion of the film. When the film gets completed and if it becomes successful, toh iski asli malaai distributors aur exhibitors naam ka darinde kha jaate hain (a large share of it is eaten away by the demons called distributors and exhibitors). And those who make our dreams come true, nobody knows them, and they are neither given respect nor rewards.

Speaking about Muslims earlier

Shah, who was seen recently in Taj: Divided By Blood, spoke about how attacking Muslims has become convenient. In an interview with Bollywood Hungama, Shah said, “Mogul has become an English word, an American word; movie Mogul. Running them down is very convenient for the present dispensation to paint all Muslims in one colour and to claim that they looted the country, they destroyed temples, they did this and that and they had many wives. Every king does this.”

He added, “Mughals came here to make this their homeland. They did not come here to loot and scoot. Like Nadirshah stole the peacock throne. He destroyed Delhi and massacred the citizens of Delhi and took his loot and pushed off. People don’t know this.”

On school syllabuses 

Theory of evolution is knocked out from the textbooks. Next, I suppose Einstein will be knocked out off the science textbooks. Then the head of ISRO saying that all the scientific discoveries are there in the Vedas (and) all these discoveries are attributed to the west falsely. Now what can you say to a thing like that?”