The Indian Women Cinematographers’ Collective has condemned cinematographer Pratik Shah’s public “apology” over multiple sexual misconduct allegations, branding it a cynical PR move and “job application.” The group says Shah weaponises therapeutic and progressive language to recast predatory behaviour as insecurity, erases victims’ trauma, and uses sobriety and mental health as a shield against professional consequences.
The Indian Women Cinematographers' Collective (IWCC) has put out a strongly worded statement against cinematographer Pratik Shah's public apology, calling it a "a cynical PR strategy". The association said that Shah—who was accused of inappropriate behaviour and sexual misconduct by multiple women last year, as reported extensively by THR India—used a "textbook example of how perpetrators of sexual misconduct weaponise modern progressive language" to absolve themselves, calling the statement a "grotesque mischaracterisation of sexual harassment."
The allegations against Shah, known for his work on titles like Vikramaditya Motwane’s Prime Video series Jubilee and Neeraj Ghaywan's Homebound, first surfaced last year when filmmaker Abhinav Singh publicly accused him of being “highly manipulative” and “emotionally abusive,” drawing on the personal testimonies of multiple victims.
Following this, he was subsequently dropped from the high-profile biopic of former Indian cricket team captain Sourav Ganguly. He recently also shot the patchwork footage for YRF Entertainment's upcoming streaming series Akka. The studio later issued a statement to THR India mentioning that Shah's name would be scrubbed from the final project's credits.
Shah’s conduct was also called into question five years ago when a young cinematographer approached a senior member of the Indian Women Cinematographers' Collective (IWCC), after Shah allegedly solicited a nude picture from her. A source close to the IWCC confirmed that Shah had issued an apology at the time.
The IWCC stated that it took the cinematogarpher twelve months of silence, the loss of a high-profile Sourav Ganguly biopic, and the unceremonious scrubbing of his name from YRF’s Akka to "finally find his conscience."
"But let us be clear about what he just published: this is not an apology. It is a calculated exercise in damage control, a desperate bid for professional reinstatement disguised as a moral awakening... By cloaking predatory behavior in the vocabulary of therapy and self-reflection, he has crafted a narrative that demands empathy for the abuser while entirely erasing the women he abused."
In his statement, Shah claimed he operated out of “insecurity and a misguided yearning for validation,” allowing the growth of his career to “cloud his judgement.”
Calling it a grotesque mischaracterisation of sexual harassment, IWCC said soliciting nude photographs and subjecting colleagues to emotional abuse are not "symptoms of a fragile ego or the confusing byproducts of sudden fame" but "deliberate, repeated abuses of power."
"By framing his predatory actions as a tragic flaw born of a desperate need for validation, Shah attempts to downgrade his behavior from predatory to merely pathetic,” the statement read. “It is a manipulative pivot designed to make the public pity him, rather than hold him accountable for the active choices he made to violate the boundaries of his colleagues. The most insidious part of Shah’s statement is his reliance on the shield of recovery. He makes sure to inform the public of his “weekly therapy” and “continuous sobriety,” presenting himself as a man doing the hard work of rehabilitation."
The IWCC stated that while sobriety and mental health care are genuinely important, deploying them in a public apology for sexual misconduct is a classic deflection tactic as it creates a linguistic hostage situation: "if you criticise him now, you are attacking a vulnerable man in recovery. But addiction and mental health struggles do not cause someone to systematically harass women in the workplace."
"Using recovery as a bulletproof vest against professional consequences is deeply offensive - not only to his victims but to anyone who actually does the silent, unglamorous work of healing without using it as leverage to get a job back."
The collective said when Shah finally addresses the fallout of his actions, his "narcissism comes into full view" as he takes responsibility for the “shame and pain” he brought upon his family, friends, and collaborators and laments the breakdown of his reputation.
"Nowhere in this carefully curated paragraph does he directly address the fear, the trauma, or the derailed careers of the young women he targeted. He is grieving his own demise. The victims are treated as mere plot devices in the tragedy of Pratik Shah’s stalled career - nameless, faceless collateral damage in his personal journey toward "growth". The most damning context surrounding Shah’s statement is that we have been here before.
"An apology followed by repeated offenses is not an apology - it is a manipulation tactic to avoid consequences. Only when the consequences finally caught up to his career, was the silence broken. True accountability is quiet. It is the acceptance of consequences without the demand for a swift return to power. While a road to redemption must exist, it cannot be a path unilaterally paved by the transgressor. It necessarily must be a journey defined by the agency and the choice of the victims. An arbitrary, one-year-later letter does nothing to facilitate that."
The IWCC also commented on Shah's claims that he is committed to “earning back trust,” but, the collective said the statement proves he "hasn't learned the first thing about it."
"Trust is not a currency you can buy back with buzzwords, twelve months of therapy, and a publicist-approved press release. This apology arrived only when the financial and professional bleeding became too severe to ignore. The industry must recognise this statement for exactly what it is: it is not a plea for forgiveness. It is a job application," the statement read.