#MeToo
Article reserved for subscribers
An explosive report on gender-based and sexual violence in the film industry in this southern Indian state has caused an earthquake, and brings real hope for change, after the burial of the #MeToo movement in Bollywood.
“Sexual harassment is omnipresent” in Kerala cinema and “Men in the industry openly and unscrupulously demand sexual relations, as if it were a right.” With these words, the Hema Commission report on the working conditions of women in this South Indian cinema, made public on August 19, shakes up the patriarchal world of Kerala’s seventh art. Because it clinically details the toxic power play imposed by its big male stars, directors, actors or producers. “From the first meetings or contacts, women are asked if they are ready to ‘adapt’ and ‘compromise’,” relates the 290-page document – about fifty of which have been cut to preserve certain personal information. These two expressions, obvious metaphors for sexual favors in exchange for a role, regularly come up in the mouths of the dozens of people interviewed. Other women say they have been harassed at night in their room, or touched in front of the entire crew, on the sets. With, each time, the threat of being ostracized if they defend themselves or protest.
Kerala cinema produces between 200 and 250 feature films per year, in Malayalam – hence its nickname Mollywood – and has, among other things, offered The Throne of Death de Murali Nai
