INTERVIEW | Agra Denied Screens: Kanu Behl Says, 'Fight Is No Longer About My Film; It's About Who Controls What India Watches'
After Agra "denied" screens, Kanu Behl says the indie films are being suffocated deliberately by the gatekeepers.
By Minal Rudra
Published : November 15, 2025 at 12:29 PM IST
|Updated : November 15, 2025 at 3:19 PM IST
“Give us screens. We will prove it.”
Director-writer-lyricist Kanu Behl says this with a strong belief that raw, independent stories deserve space and support to prove their potential. On the day his directorial Agra released (Nov 14), he wrote a post online saying the film was being denied shows. Multiplex chains said small films do not fit into their programming. He asked viewers to speak up and tag the chains. It was a plea. And also a warning. This was not just about one film anymore.
Written by Kanu and Atika Chohan, Agra explores desire and loneliness inside a cramped small-town home. Guru, a sexually repressed young man, sleeps in the same room as his mother. His father lives upstairs with his mistress. The terrace becomes the battleground where every family member fights for space, including Guru who believes he will one day live there with Mala, the imaginary girl he insists he loves. From online sex chats to an unexpected connection with a 40-year-old disabled woman, the story becomes a bruising coming-of-age journey. It is a film about desire, delusion, shame, and the claustrophobia of growing up in a house where no one has space to breathe.
Agra had travelled the world. It premiered at Directors’ Fortnight in the Cannes Film Festival, receiving a 5-minute standing ovation. It won praise across festivals. Every private screening in India ran house full. Kanu says he saw normal janta turning up, not film industry people. He saw people being turned away from the door. And then the film came home to a theatrical release that felt like a punishment. Sixty to seventy screens. Mostly in the far corners of cities. Hard to reach. Easy to dismiss.
“This film has been universally loved wherever it has screened,” he says. “So first you write the film. Then you find financing. Then you make it. Then you edit it. Then you chase festivals. Then you come back and market it yourself like a gorilla. And after all this, you are told small films don’t fit into programming. So now I should learn distribution also. What is the rest of this ecosystem doing?”
The Titli director did not sound bitter but frustrated. He believes the problem is much larger than Agra. “The gatekeepers need to understand the old things don’t work anymore,” the Dispatch director says. “Neither does the star system. Nor does most content floating around. Most of it is soulless. Designed to be sold in a capitalistic, consumptive manner.” For him, the audience has already answered. “People are speaking up by not turning up at theaters. Because there is nothing significant to watch.”
At the recently concluded Dharmashala Film Festival, filmmaker Kiran Rao spoke about the need for a proper platform for indie films. Kanu welcomes the sentiment, but he is not willing to stop at admiration. “Talking is not enough,” he says. “Someone has to back it. But this effort cannot rest on an individual. We all have to come together. Like Javed (Akhtar) saab fought for intellectual property (IP) laws in the music industry, fighting for proper credit and royalties for lyricists and composers. He started it. Then he got the whole community together. Movements start like that.”
He insists the burden cannot fall on lone warriors anymore. “It has happened too many times for it to be about an individual. We will have to organise. We will have to demand structural support.”
He says he will stand, even if he stands alone at times. “I cannot speak for others. I can speak for myself. I am going to stand up and speak. And after this, wherever it happens again, I will stand there too. You give me screens, and I will prove to you how many people come and buy a ticket.”
While he fights for Agra, Behl wants younger filmmakers to hear him. “Keep your courage. Do not lose courage.”
The conversation shifts to the industry’s reluctance to truly support independent cinema. Kanu does not dress up his words. “It is the mafia that controls everything,” he says. “A bunch of very few people who don’t want to give up control. Who don’t want this to be democratised.”
He explains how box office expectations for indies are manipulated right from the start. “Distribution is a screen game. If you release on 100 screens, you know the lifetime. If you release on 400, you know it. The big studios calculate this three days before release. They will sit you down and tell you the exact number. So if the game is being rigged from inside, what chance does anyone have? No one has the right to say they are disappointed with an indie film’s performance when they never gave it a chance.”
Some people online told him he should have chosen OTT. Kanu almost laughs, but it is not amusement. “It is the same mafia,” he says. “OTT has become a dumping ground for second and third-rung films of big banners. And when you go to pitch something, they say, "Can you make TV++ content?. Can you make second screen friendly content so that even if people look at their phone and look back nothing is missed?” For him, that is the real problem. “It is an organised dumbing down. Bigger corporates are leading it."
He says they tried the OTT route after Covid. No one wanted to take the film. So Agra returned to a theatrical release, even if the access was limited. “In Bombay we have one Inox in Malad. Not Andheri. Not Juhu. Same story in other cities. You are not giving any opportunity to anyone to watch the film. And then you say no one is watching. It is a strategy. It is a kind of censorship.”
And then he says the thing he knows will sting many. He chooses each word with precision. “Why do we have mediocre star kids and their films prancing around everywhere? How will that happen if good work does not get space? If internationally acclaimed work cannot find a place back home. And only certain people get the space. Then good luck to our country.”
He circles back again to the heart of his argument. “This cannot be an individual fight. Everybody has to come together. Speak up for our collective rights.” He says this fight is no longer about one film. "It is about what stories India gets to see. And who gets to decide that."
“I am standing here, and I am not stepping back,” he concludes.
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