Screenwriter and IFFI jury member Apurva Asrani, who had taken to Twitter to voice his protest over Durga and Nude being dropped from 48th International Film Festival of India, has resigned from the jury panel in protest. Also, The Good Road director, Gyan Correa has resigned from the jury. Even chairperson Sujoy Ghosh resigned on Tuesday in protest.

On November 9, the Information & Broadcasting Ministry announced the list of ‘feature’ and ‘non-feature’ films for the Indian Panorama section of IFFI, which is scheduled to be held from November 20 to 28 in Goa. Following the announcement, some of the jury members were upset that Ravi Jadhav’s Marathi film Nude and Sanal Kumar Sasidharan’s Malayalam thriller Sexy Durga (now retitled as S Durga) were dropped from the final list of 26 feature films issued by the Information & Broadcasting Ministry without consulting them.

When we at indianexpress.com got in touch with screenwriter Apurva Asrani, he condemned the dropping of both the films and said, “I stand with the chairman of the jury. We had a responsibility towards some very sincere films, and somewhere we have failed them. My conscience won’t allow me to participate in the festivities in Goa.”

Apart from Ghosh and Asrani, the jury for feature films in the Panorama also includes director Rahul Rawail, actor-director Gopi Desai, filmmaker Nishikant Kamat, director-writer Nikkhil Advani and director-writer Ruchi Narain.