CHENNAI: Two and a half years ago, Vaishnavi Sundar set out to shoot her documentary, But What Was She Wearing, with Lime Soda Productions. Released last week at the height of the #MeToo trend on Twitter, the documentary provides an in-depth look at harassment, consent, laws in the workplace and the stories of survivors who have decided to take their abusers to a court of law.
With her 109-minute documentary divided into 11 chapters, Vaishnavi hopes to give a glimpse into the real-life situation and struggles of these survivors from across the country. “I made this film, not because one is ignorant and I’m not taking any position of morality here. Many people don’t know about this just because of the way they were raised. But, if I were to genuinely explain what harassment was to someone, this is how I would,” said Vaishnavi.
Her documentary looks into sexual harassment laws on paper and their execution in real-life, the protection that rural women get from the existing laws, and the effects of toxic masculinity on men. Over the course of filming her documentary, Vaishnavi and her team travelled, camped and spoke to over 100 people, 30 of whom are in the documentary. Vaishnavi says that due to lack of funding, most of her own money went into the production of the documentary, and that she spent a lot of time travelling to meet the survivors who spoke on record. She was insistent that they not remain anonymous so that there could be no debate on why they didn’t speak out.
“Women are looked at as a secondary object or species by society, who don’t require to be leaders or to work or much from a woman in general. There needs to be a change in the ways we teach children about consent and equality, and go all the way down the ladder. And the laws say working women, to not speak of urban, upper class and upper caste women alone. You need to go parallel as well as vertical,” said the 32-year-old filmmaker.
The film will be screened at Goethe Institut, Max Mueller Bhavan,on November 3 at 6 pm.