This country isn’t for women, says Vaishnavi Sundar with conviction. Unless you have been through your fair share of ordeals, no one would make such a statement. “Sometimes I think that I should just pack my bags and leave, then I think of women who did what they had to for us to vote or even talk like this. That’s what keeps me going,” explains the 30-year-old independent filmmaker, who found the non-profit community Women Making Films-India (WMF) in 2015. It serves as a platform for women filmmakers across the world to showcase their work and create a network across the industry.
“A few years ago, I realised it isn’t easy for a woman to be a filmmaker in this country, I figured it would be nice to have a support system that has your back. Can you believe that there are none in India? Being a feminist that I am, instead of whining I started this community,” says Vaishnavi, who also has her own production company, Lime Soda Films. In a year, WMF now has grown to 108 members and has conducted about sixteen film festivals across the globe to screen movies made by women or people who identify themselves as women. They partnered with similar international communities to collaborate and promote the work of their members. On the website, she compiles archival posts of iconic women in cinema along with interviews of upcoming female professionals like Jyoti Kapoor, who won a case of script plagiarism against a Bollywood filmmaker.
“I also do children outreach programmes at schools, NGOs, and slums where I screen movies made for or by kids that highlight social issues like gender inequality, consent and rape. Not many understand how important childhood is for an individual. So when a child understands these things at that age, it sticks with them for life. Through a movie it’s easy to talk about these issues,” she says adding, “I just require some assistance from schools to screen these movies.” She wants children to understand that it’s possible for a woman to make it big in the film industry and that film-making is a good career option.
Vaishnavi also has many other feathers in her cap. As part of the student union while studying in Ethiraj College for Women, Chennai, she advocated for male participation in their cultural events for the first time. She is a theatre artist with an MBA degree who quit her corporate job to take up film-making. She’s also an activist who blogs about several issues and campaigns against movies like Remo, which glorifies stalking as wooing women. Her post on the unofficial ban on emergency contraceptive pills in Tamil Nadu garnered attention and now the State Drug Controller has written to the Centre, to allow over-the-counter sale of the drug.
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