‘Erasing a woman’s work is their biggest weapon’

A session at BIFFes focused on whether industries were ready to accept women filmmakers

The Tuesday press conference at the Bengaluru International Film Festival (BIFFes) saw an energetic discussion on how the industries in the country treat its women filmmakers.

Biffes 2020 is the most progressive the festival has been in terms of gender parity since its inception, with the Karnataka Chalanachitra Academy introducing a special category for films by women filmmakers.

The three women directors on the session, Vijayalakshmi Singh, Suman Nagarkar and Geetha J, had Biffes Chairman Suneel Puranik, who moderated the discussion, to thank for this.

Suman requested the chairman to make the women filmmaker section competitive from next year onwards. Puranik said no, but added that so long as he remains the chairman next year, which he added may not be the case, he will make sure that the category continues to exist.

The discussion centred on whether the industries are ready to accept women filmmakers who put in the same amount of effort as their male counterparts. All the women on the stage seemed to paraphrase one another when they insisted that they are working in a man’s world. Puranik, in comparison, seemed far more optimistic and said “things are changing”.

“There are co-workers who still think ‘Should I take instructions from her?’It’s not just here, even in America, they are not ready for a woman president,” said Suman, who lives in the US.

When Metrolife asked whether she endorses either Elizabeth Warren or Amy Kobluchar, frontrunners to defeat Donald Trump in the November general elections, Suman said she hadn’t been following the elections there closely, but added, “I am definitely a Democrat. And I will be voting in November.” Hours after this interaction, seemingly prophetically, Kobluchar withdrew from the race. Both Geetha and Suman, in separate conversations with Metrolife, said that the exposure they couldn’t get as artistes here, they managed to get in the west.

In Geetha’s case, it was Britain; in Suman’s case, the US. “You become much more open and flexible with that kind of exposure,” Suman said. Geetha said that there is a passive attempt to shut out women who seek to do a ‘man’s work’ in a ‘man’s world’.

“Ignoring it is always the response to a woman’s film. Erasure is the biggest weapon they have. They erase you from existence.” She said that recognition comes only when it reaches a point when the woman’s output cannot be ignored anymore. “So, persistence is the key,” I asked. “Yes,” she said.