As many as 11 women Indian filmmakers came together on Sunday to support the ongoing #MeToo movement in India. In a statement, they said that they have taken a stand to not work with proven offenders.
Alankrita Shrivastava, Gauri Shinde, Kiran Rao, Konkona Sen Sharma, Meghna Guizar, Nandita Das, Nitya Mehra, Reema Kagti, Ruchi Narain, Shonali Bose and Zoya Akhtar are among the filmmakers who have taken the stand, according to a note circulated by them on social media.
Read their statement in full here:
"As women and filmmakers, we come together to support the #MeToolndia movement. We are in complete solidarity with the women who have come forward with honest accounts of harassment and assault. Our respect and admiration to them as their courage has started a revolution of welcome change.
We are here to spread awareness to help create a safe and equal atmosphere for all in the workplace. We have also taken a stand to not work with proven offenders. We urge all our peers in the industry to do the same.”
The #MeToo movement in India sparked shortly after actor Tanushree Dutta came forward to renew allegations of sexual harassment against Nana Patekar in an incident dating back to 2008. Since then, a number of women have come forward with complaints against names like Alok Nath, Rajat Kapoor, Subhash Ghai, Vikas Bahl, Subhash Kapoor, Kailash Kher, Sajid Khan and more.
Ever since the names came out, Aamir Khan stepped out of a project which was to be directed by Subhash Kapoor. Akshay Kumar asked the producers of Housefull 4, which was being directed by Sajid and co-starred Nana, to cancel the shoot until "further investigation", and Hrithik Roshan too urged the producers of Vikas Bahl's Super 30 to take a hard stand.
As a fallout of the movement, Sajid has been replaced as Housefull 4 director by Farhad Samji.