‘Cinema in India still caught up in male gaze’

Women’s International Film Festival of Kerala begins

Kerala Chalachitra Academy Chairman Kamal and actor Anumol at the inauguration of the Women’s International Film Festival of Kerala in Kozhikode on Tuesday.

Petrunya defended that cross as if her whole life depended on it. While jumping into a river to retrieve the cross the priest had tossed in, she never guessed her being a woman could create so many problems. Petrunya’s fight for her rightful cross in God Exists, Her name is Petrunya was the ideal beginning for a festival that was intended to celebrate women’s place in a man’s world.

The second edition of the Women’s International Film Festival of Kerala was opened in Kozhikode on Tuesday with the Macedonian film directed by Teona Strugar Mitevska.

The opening day of the festival was also marked by six other films –

Bibtya by Gargee Kulkarni,

Checkmate by Ekatara Collective, Phir

Ek Subah by Indira Aditi Rawat,

Suffragette by Sarah Gavron,

Paikinjana Chiri by Leela Santhosh and

Unlimited Girls by Paromita Vohra.

Safragette , the only non Indian movie of the lot, was based on the history of British feminist movement demanding right to franchise for women. Leela Santhosh, the first Adivasi film-maker of Kerala, made her mark through the movie Paikinjana Chiri made in the Paniya language.

Kerala Chalachitra Academy Chairman Kamal, who gave up his duty to declare the festival open to actor Anumol, said there has been a rise in women’s involvement in cinema in the recent years. Ms. Anumol said that cinema in India is still caught up in the male gaze and expressed the need for it to come out of it.

Deedi Damodaran, vice chairperson of the festival committee, said women’s film festivals were like walking sticks for women who had to traverse a large distance to reach a good position in the world of cinema.