THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Hema Committee Report, which has created a storm in film industries across the country in just four weeks, was submitted in December 2019. That was nearly four-and-a-half years ago.
While the report and the women involved faded away from the collective consciousness, documentary filmmaker Miriam Chandy Menacherry has been working to retrieve the hidden voices of these women in the Malayalam film industry who took a stand and created the Women in Cinema Collective.
“In 2017, when an actress was assaulted in Kerala and the involvement of many people came to light — it sent a kind of shockwave. Though I’m based in Mumbai, I am a Malayali. And I could feel the significance of when these women came together to ensure the survivor had a fair hearing,” says Miriam.
She got a grant from the Bengaluru-based India Foundation for the Arts (IFA) in 2020, to construct vivid and contrasting accounts of the Women in Cinema Collective.
For Miriam, WCC was a strong coalition of women, who were going to make a difference. “And the ripple effects of their actions would be felt not just in Kerala but across India, the biggest film-producing nation in the world.”
Being a filmmaker, she knew it was not an easy journey for any woman. “I wanted to learn their stories,” says Miriam, opening up about what inspired her to look into the journeys of women like Bina Paul, Anjali Menon and others involved in WCC. Each member of the WCC, she highlights, plays a unique role within the industry, as screenwriters, editors, cinematographers, or directors.
“Cinema is such a complex, collaborative art form that involves so many different talents coming together. I felt these voices needed to be represented because they have put years into building not just good cinema but also carving out spaces for women so that people like me can do it later,” she says.
Miriam describes the work as an extensive ‘archival project’. “I’ve dug into archives to pull out images of these women at work and also interviewed them to understand their journey,” she says. The end goal is a book that will accompany these images, but she also envisions the project taking multiple forms in the public domain.
“From a social media presence to mixed media, I believe this project deserves to be seen and heard in different ways.”
She has also received a Fulbright Fellowship to expand her research, exploring the ripple effects of the WCC’s impact across India and drawing parallels with movements in Hollywood. “WCC took a stand even before the #MeToo movement, so I see their work as pioneering in gender in cinema.”
The former journalist is not new to presenting real stories to an audience. Her national award-winning documentary ‘From the Shadows’ tells a harrowing tale of human trafficking in India.
“We all know about trafficking, but it often feels distant — like it’s happening to someone out there. When I saw the imagery of a shadow of a girl on the wall that kept appearing in different parts of Kolkata, Mumbai and Bengaluru with the #Missing, it gave me a very eerie sensation. It said that every eight minutes, a girl goes missing which means that it’s happening before our eyes and we are blind to it,” she adds.
Tackling the laws on representing survivors was the most challenging for the filmmaker. “The filmmaking process went on for four years, and then the pandemic set the project back by two. I never thought at the time that it would win an award.”
Miriam was just focused on keeping the project alive to tell the story of a girl. “But later she explained to me that she couldn’t show her face. It was because there is no sign of her verdict coming out. So, I had to re-edit the whole thing,” says Miriam.
“Luckily, I found residencies where I could step back from my material and breathe. If I did not have those chances, I think I might have given up. I thought of giving up at least four times,” smiles the filmmaker.