Bina Paul recently attended the India Today Conclave South 2023. (Image: Praveen Srp/Facebook)
Amidst the numerous controversies surrounding the Malayalam film industry, National Award-winning film editor and former vice chairperson of the Kerala State Chalachitra Academy Bina Paul recently stressed the necessity to ensure a safe and secure space for women in the field.
“With Women in Cinema Collective (WCC), what we were looking for was a workplace environment. What is it like to be a woman in cinema? One is content. It is easy for a guy, a successful filmmaker to say ‘I’ll make a film about women’. It’s about what is happening in the film industry. In a state where women are so literate, who are part of a working force, why does cinema continue to be a boys’ club,” she asked while attending the India Today Conclave South 2023 as a speaker during a session titled “Women Rising: Breaking the Walls of Patriarchy in Cinema”.
“Why don’t any women feel empowered to get into it? We know the great controversies when we did talk it out. Our concern is Malayalam cinema as a workplace and not only sexual harassment, which is rampant unfortunately, but also about facilities, security, and so many things that others would for granted in other workspaces,” Bina said.
Meanwhile, Bina Paul also weighed in on the row over Sudipto Sen’s The Kerala Story and dubbed the film as “factually wrong”.
“I am upset that the film got so much mileage, frankly quite unnecessarily. It probably could have died a natural death if nobody talked about it. This is the atmosphere of impunity today. You are protected and can say completely, factually, wrong stuff. Even the producers had to change their trailer because of the misinterpretation of facts nobody talked about. This film would do well in this atmosphere of impunity. There are so many other good films, 2018: Everyone Is A Hero is such an important Malayalam film that has come. But when you have tax-free and when you are encouraged to go and watch a particular film, you would choose to. I am very saddened because there was no reason for the film to have hit the headlines like this. It’s a film that is factually wrong. I haven’t seen it but one is heard that the film is factually wrong. It doesn’t have cinematic value, but perhaps it is a narrative that feeds on certain people’s wishes on what this country is,” Bina stated.
Pointing out that she was so proud of the Kerala audience to say that ‘No, of course, the film will not do well’, she added, “2018 has broken all records which has the exact opposite narrative of community building.”
Further highlighting the endeavours of WCC, Bina Paul expressed, “What WCC did was push gender into the forefront of this conversation. No change is going to take place over two-three years. This kind of attitude change takes a lot of time. But what we do see is there is a conversation about gender today and nobody will take it for granted. That is the biggest success of WCC.”
“We have had a workshop on what the POSH Act is with producers. The court has now mandated that every film set has to have an IC. This was kind of a long battle that we fought. I am finding that more than anything, the mindset has to change,” Bina said referring to the implementation of the POSH Act on film sets.