At a film conclave in Kerala this week, Adoor Gopalakrishnan – one of Indian cinema’s most celebrated directors – stood before an audience and delivered a speech laced with casteist and elitist remarks.

He criticised Kerala’s decision to fund a few chosen Dalit and Adivasi filmmakers with Rs 1.5 crore each, saying the money would lead to corruption, and that the amount should be slashed to Rs 50 lakh so they understand the “difficulties of making a film.”

Women, he added, should also not be funded unless they’re trained enough.

He then reminisced about how workers from Chala once tried to sneak into a theatre to catch “a scene of sex” and how that moment led him to support higher delegate fees, to keep “those who can’t appreciate cinema” out of film festivals.

All this was neither a slip of tongue, nor a joke. It was caste prejudice, said plainly, into a mic, at a state government event.

And this isn't the first time Adoor has courted controversy with such statements. 

Even in 2023, he had sparked outrage while speaking in defense of the former director of the KR Narayanan Institute, Shankar Mohan, who was accused of casteist behaviour.

At the time, students even used an edited still from Vidheyan, the film Adoor directed, replacing the cruel landlord’s face with his, horns and all. 

The man who made Vidheyan, a critique of feudal caste oppression, was now accused of embodying it. This clash of art and authority was deeply revealing. And it didn’t come out of nowhere. This wasn’t a break from Malayalam cinema’s legacy. Rather, it was a return to its beginning.

Because caste has always shaped Malayalam cinema, not just in who gets to act or direct, but whose stories are told, who gets erased, and who gets to decide what counts as “good cinema.” 

Of course, that doesn’t mean there haven’t been efforts to challenge it – there have. But the fault lines have always been there, from Malayalam’s very first film, Vigathakumaran, to the present day.

Let me explain.