India is being caught up in a new #metoo wave in cinema. This time, it is affecting the Kerala film industry, nicknamed Mollywood, which produces nearly two hundred films a year, in the Malayalam language. Its competitor Bollywood, based in Bombay, had been shaken in 2018 by a first scandal.
On August 19, an explosive report was released that reveals widespread sexual harassment and abuse. It comes from the Hema Commission, named after the judge who chairs it, which was created in 2017 under pressure from a group of actresses by the local communist government following the kidnapping and sexual assault by several men of a star, Karthika Menon.
In a rare development, the victim filed a complaint and investigators discovered that the actor and producer Gopalakrishnan Padmanabhan, a superstar with 130 films, was the mastermind behind the kidnapping, a “punitive operation” that amounted to personal revenge. He was charged in 2017, arrested and released on bail after serving 85 days in jail. The case is still pending.
“Mafia of powerful men”
For two years, the Hema Commission conducted confidential interviews with all the stakeholders, actors, actresses, but also all the little hands, from costume designers to makeup artists. It submitted its findings in December 2019 to the Kerala government, but the latter swept the thick 290-page document under the carpet. It has only just been published, five years late, on the orders of the state information commission, on July 6, 2024. An appeal by an actor further delayed its publication, but the Kerala High Court rejected it.
The report, redacted by about sixty pages to hide the identity of witnesses and accused, is edifying concerning this industry, described as under the influence and control of a “mafia of powerful men”, a group of about fifteen people, and within which “Sexual harassment against women is endemic”.
Victims testify to blackmail over employment by actors, producers and directors, forcing actresses, especially beginners, to accept ” compromise “ or some “adjustments”that is, sex in exchange for roles or career advancement. “Men in the industry openly demand sexual relations without any qualms, as if it were an acquired right”the authors write.
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The commission noted dangerous working conditions on set, with a lack of basic facilities such as toilets or changing rooms, forcing women to relieve themselves in isolated areas, or to refrain from drinking water, with trailers reserved for the main actresses. Location shoots are particularly prone to assault. One actress described how a drunk director would bang on her hotel room door at night so violently that she feared it would collapse. The only way for actors to protect themselves is to have a parent or close friend accompany them to the set.
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