(From left) Padmapriya, Rima Kallingal, Beena Paul, Revathi and Parvathy Thiruvothu | Photo credit: Illustration: R. Rajesh

“This is the voice of women and it must be heard!” That was how a Facebook post by the Women in Cinema Collective (WCC) ended, hours after the Kerala government on August 19, 2024, released the redacted version of the K. Hema Commission report on the issues faced by women in the Malayalam film industry. The 235-page report had created a political storm in the state for exposing “horrific stories of sexual exploitation, illegal bans, discrimination, drug and alcohol abuse, wage disparities and in some cases inhuman working conditions” in the multi-crore industry.

For the WCC, it has been “a long journey” as they have won their case in their fight for “justice for all women who want a dignified professional space in the film industry”. The three-member committee, headed by a former judge of the Kerala High Court, was set up by the government in July 2017 as a result of a petition the collective had filed with Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan to look into the issues faced by women in the Malayalam film industry. Though the committee submitted its report on December 31, 2019, it was not made public as it contained sensitive information.

The WCC, the first of its kind in the country, came into being after a woman actor was allegedly abducted and sexually assaulted in a moving car on the evening of February 17, 2017 in Kochi. Shocked by the cowardly act, a group of nearly 18 women, including some of the prominent technicians, writers and actors, joined hands to support the survivor and wage an unyielding fight for justice.

An investigation by the Special Investigation Team of the Kerala Police led to the arrest of Malayalam actor Dileep, who allegedly held a grudge against the victim for her alleged involvement in the break-up of his previous marriage. He was arrested on July 10, 2017, after being charged as the eighth accused in the case. After spending 85 days in Aluva Jail in Ernakulam, the actor was granted bail by the Kerala High Court and was released on October 3, 2017.

According to the WCC, “the entire episode and the subsequent reactions confirmed the strength of patriarchal beliefs in the film industry, and highlighted the challenges faced by survivors in their quest for justice”. Nearly three months after the attack on the actress, the collective was formally launched on 18 May 2017. The WCC was registered on 1 November 2017 under the Travancore Cochin Literary, Scientific and Charitable Societies Registration Act, 1955, with “a vision to ensure equal spaces and equal opportunities for women in cinema”.

Non-discriminatory workplace

The mission objectives include working towards building a safe, non-discriminatory and professional workplace for women in the film industry through advocacy and policy change and creating awareness about gender bias and exploitation faced by women in the film industry, both on-screen and off. A volunteer spirit drives the functioning of the collective as it operates in a lateral structure. Responsibilities are shared and different teams handle a wide range of roles including day-to-day management, policy formulation and engagement with experts on legal perspectives regarding women’s rights at the workplace. A person above the age of 18 years working in the Malayalam film industry, with a minimum of three film credits to her credit and referred by the existing members, is eligible to join the collective, according to the official website.

In its first two years of existence, the WCC focused on addressing sexual harassment within the industry. When the survivor started receiving jabs from within the industry, the WCC rallied behind her and launched a counter-campaign using the hashtag #Avalkoppam (with her). The global attention garnered by the #MeToo movement in 2017 gave impetus to their initiative.

Despite being aware of the potential damage it could do to their careers, four members of the WCC, including the survivor, resigned from the Association of Malayalam Movie Artistes (AMMA) in June 2018, in protest against the organisation’s decision to reinstate Dileep, who had been expelled from the organisation after he was named as an accused in the kidnapping and sexual assault case. Among those who walked out were actors Rima Kallingal, Remya Nambeesan and filmmaker Geetu Mohandas, after they stated that “the leadership of the association was with the accused and not the survivor”. Actor Parvathy Thiruvothu, who wanted to continue the fight from within, resigned in October 2020 in protest against the alleged derogatory remarks made by a senior official of the actors’ body against the survivor.

The long-standing struggle against the male-dominated structures of the industry has come at a cost, especially for the eloquent voices in the collective. As the Hema Commission’s own report put it: “WCC members have a strong argument that they have all been banned from cinemas because they have openly said undesirable things that happen in cinemas. They are practically kept at arm’s length by those who are offended by what members of the collective have openly said about the atrocities of cinema and AMMA.”

An actor who testified before the committee denied the allegations of denying opportunities to WCC members when he asked them to “accept the reality that the prominence of the actress will decrease as the days go by and this is very common”. The collective and its working model have come under indirect criticism from within the industry as they have often been labelled as “feminists who stay within the comfort zone of cyberspace” and “doing women’s empowerment through Facebook”.

Tireless pursuits

However, the collective’s relentless legal quest to safeguard women’s rights at the workplace received a major boost after the Kerala High Court on March 17, 2022, directed film production houses to set up an Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) under the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013. The court, which was acting on a petition filed by the WCC, held that “every film unit in an industry is an establishment and an ICC must be constituted for that purpose”. It had also ruled against the plea of ​​a film producer challenging the state information commissioner’s order to make public the Hema Commission’s report.

The WCC has spread its wings by undertaking several independent projects. It has partnered with the Sakhi Women’s Resource Centre, Thiruvananthapuram, to launch a report, ‘Shift Focus: Women Shaping the Narrative in Media and Entertainment’, aimed at creating guidelines for building gender-balanced professional spaces in the film industry. It has worked on developing a network of counsellors to reach out to women who face negative experiences in the industry. The collective has also initiated a project to collect quantitative information on the number of women in the film industry across skill sets, aimed at learning about inequality and lack of inclusion. Over the last seven years, it has emerged as a strong platform “where the myriad experiences of women in film have been given a voice and heard”.