Srinagar, Sept. 19 -- Srinagar- The calls began two months ago and keep coming.

Filmmakers from India and abroad phone Mushtaaque Ali Ahmad Khan to ask when submissions close for the film festival the Jammu and Kashmir government organized this month, and they assume he directs it.

Khan, founder-director of the Kashmir World Film Festival (KWFF), says the callers found him because officials on the festival's team stayed out of touch.

The government projected its event as the first international film festival of Jammu and Kashmir, and Khan disputes that billing in a statement dated September 18.

Khan says he conceived and ran the valley's first international festival of that magnitude in 2017, before any government department envisione...