Women in Cinema Collective is an organization for women working in the Malayalam cinema industry.
Formation
It was formed after an actress working in the Malayalam film industry was waylaid and harassed. The organisation aims at the welfare of women in Malayalam cinema. On November 1, 2017 Women in Cinema Collective was registered as a society in Kerala.
Activities
‘Punarvaayana’, a year-long series of events was intended to address and bring more awareness in the society on issues such as exclusionary workspaces, workplace exploitation and gender discrimination. This curtain-raiser brought together prominent and successful women from various fields — including mediapersons, lawyers, bureaucrats, politicians, social activists to discuss and contemplate on these matters.
WCC members has requested the intervention of the government to formalise wage structure and welfare schemes for women working in the film industry such as maternity pay and tax subsidies for production crews that have at least 30% women representation, among many others.
Actor Parvathy, a member of AMMA and WCC, was one of the first to openly state that films with misogynist dialogues should not be encouraged. She named the veteran actor Mammootty’s film Kasaba, as one such movie. She requested that senior actors like Mammootty who is much respected and has a wide fan following should henceforth refrain from acting in movies that has such misogynistic scripts for the betterment of the society at large. Parvathy's viewpoint received mostly criticism but also some support from the film fraternity and she became the victim of cyber-bullying. She was viciously trolled and abused by fans of Mammootty and two of them were arrested by the Kerala police following a complaint from Parvathy
Similar Initiatives
Film Employees Federation of Kerala rolls out its own women's wing. Bhagyalakshmi, the chairperson of the newly created women's wing, criticised WCC in being selective in its approach. The new women's wing which in many ways is looked upon as a parallel association to WCC, is claimed to be a platform where concerns of women technicians can be voiced out and they would act as arbitrators with the concerned producers to sort them out.
