On April 26, 2019, the Women in Cinema Collective (WCC) will celebrate its two year anniversary. Founded by a few bold women from Malayalam cinema, WCC was the change the deeply patriarchal industry needed. It raised uncomfortable questions regarding safety of women in the industry and created solidarity and awareness about the several problems faced by women artists.
As the date of its second birthday draws closer, the collective plans to take the talk beyond Malayalam cinema by hosting several women artistes from across film industries in the country. The goal is to hold a fruitful, multi-panel conference to discuss problems and solutions for women in cinema.
Speaking to TNM, WCC member and noted film Bina Paul and director Anjali Menon explains the focus of the conference.
“The goal is to streamline and contemporise this industry which is so traditional in its working. We will have women who actively practice their craft open up about the different issues they face and come up with solutions. This is not going to be some whining session but a synergy between different industries and its female artists” Bina Paul tells TNM.
The discussions would also not end at sexual harassment, but would continue to address the several issues female artistes tackle on a daily basis.
“For example maternity leave. There are so many industries which offer maternity leave. But we don’t. These are complicated questions, I know. But we will attempt to find answers to them,” Bina adds.
Bina also adds that the talks will be held with the understanding that women are part of the labour force within the industry and hence also operate as an economic entity.
“Every industry which contributes in some way to the GDP have a streamlined labour force. The film industry in India contributes a little less than 1 percent of the GDP. This is a huge number and there are as many employees - both men and women - in cinema. Does this industry need no streamlining and systems then?” Bina asks.
Best practices
A major aim of roping in women from Telugu, Hindi, Kannada and other languages is to study the unique problems of their female members.
“No two industries are the same. Sometimes an industry might have issues that we (Malayalam artistes) have never faced. Therefore it helps to create a broad based list of issues, document them and then cull out a manual for ‘Best Practices’ to standardise how things are done within the workplace,” Anjali Menon, director, adds.
The manual would essentially be a set of guidelines for men and women artistes to be more organised within the industry. If implemented, it could even guarantee a safe and secure space for artistes (especially women) to operate in.
“Take the act of script reading. The best practices manual could tell you where you can do script readings for a potential movie that would guarantee a safe space for all members involved. For instance, a woman could feel uneasy if the reading is done in a closed hotel room. Therefore, standardsfor all of this is required” Bina says.
Although WCC cannot force all members of the industry to comply with their guidelines, they say that they only aim to offer an alternate and better standard for members to choose from.
“We are not a law making body and hence, cannot promise that these guidelines will be implemented. But we are offering the guidelines that they can choose to follow. And if applied it could help everyone, including men and women, victims and accused, by streamlining processes and finding solutions,” Anjali and Bina add.
Multiple PILs and the POSH ACT
While the guidelines for the best practices will be debated, Anjali says that it has been a challenge to get film bodies to even comply with the mandatory POSH Act for preventing sexual harassment.
“There are scores of bodies such as the Producers Guild of India, FIRE (Film Industry for Rights and Equality) etc who have implemented the POSH Act brilliantly. Any production company employing a film crew without having an ICC is in violation of the law,” Anjali says.
Over the 2 years, WCC has filed two PILs in the Kerala High Court to get Malayalam film bodies to work together to ensure that the film industry is POSH compliant. Anjali says as per International Labour Organisation's reports, sexual harssment is regarded as a safety hazard, and trade bodies play a major role in collective bargaining to mitigate these issues. "We wish here too the industry bodies would play a similar role," she said.
Conference and public event
The WCC’s conference will also be followed by a public event on April 26 which would see the group’s official website launched. In addition to Tamil director and anti-caste activist PA Ranjth who will attend as chief guest, the event will also see Bollywood actor Swara Bhasker, lawyer and women’s rights activist Vrinda Grover, Oscar winning producer of Period: End of Sentence - Guneet Monga, in participation.
Film bodies such as Voices of Women (Telugu), FIRE, SISWA (Tamil) etc are also likely to attend the conference, which will be held in association with Women’s Rights NGO Sakhi.