"Together, these two films triggered a successful video participatory movement that brought about government intervention, securing protection for women who were harassed in the name of caste," says Manimekalai.
"Seventeen caste Hindus who had violated and raped Dalit women were arrested." Parai had served its purpose. Parai, her 45-minute documentary draws the wrath of local politicians, upper caste communities, and even sections of Dalits, who attacked her higher caste status and accused her of painting them black. Police action followed.Ģ004: Manimekalai goes to Tamil Nadu's Siruthondamadevi village, to make a film on violence against Dalit women in Tamil Nadu.
#LEENA MANIMEKALAI KAVITHAI IN TAMIL CRACK#
But the National Human Rights Commission took notice of the film, and marked it as evidence to crack down on the inhuman practice. The 16-minute documentary, Mathamma incensed the Arundhatiyar community. Her friends helped out with the editing and sound-mixing. When she went back to Chennai, she freelanced to pay the bills. I shot as much as I could in a day," she says. "I didn't think I was going to make a film. Manimekalai documented cases of children who had been sexually exploited for ten or twenty rupees. This was a practice akin to the devadasi system, where minor girls were given over to the temple, and exploited by the priests and the community. With a hired vehicle, camera equipment, and the Rs 1 lakh she had saved up, she set out to make a film on the Arundhatiyar community's practice of 'dedicating' girls to the deity Mathamma. Manimekalai lands up in Mangattucheri village near Arokonam.
"I know the importance of being hated," she says.Ĭut to 2002. That the 33-year-old, though feted abroad, is a marginal figure in her own country, and is struggling to pay her cast and crew, is a testament to her own uncompromising vision of filmmaking as a political act.Īnd it helps that she is never afraid to pay the price for her politics. In a country where the closest we get to political filmmaking is, say, a love story set in the backdrop of communal violence, or a love story set in the backdrop of militancy in Kashmir, or well, a love story set in the backdrop of (fill in preferred social/political issue), the fiery, irrepressible Leena Manimekalai is an aberration. Chennai-based activist filmmaker Leena Manimekalai has been arrested, harassed, had her tapes seized and films banned, but she is unwilling to compromise on her radical approach to filmmaking, Her films have earned the wrath of a hypocritical state that professes to respect freedom of expression but clamps down on dissent.
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