Women in Cinema Collective will work for equal opportunity and dignity of women employees in Mollywood!

In a first, women in the Malayalam film industry will now get a platform to address their concerns and work towards a peaceful working atmosphere — a women’s association, christened Women in Cinema Collective, has been formed which will function solely for them. “The organisation will work for equal opportunity and dignity of women employees in the industry,” says Beena Paul, film editor, who along with Manju Warrier, Parvathy Thiruvothu, Anjali Menon, Rima Kallingal, Sajitha Madathil, Vidhu Vincent and Deedi Damodaran will head the collective.

“The movement is a result of the discussions that has been happening among the women in Malayalam cinema over the past two months. We wanted to address the gender issues within the industry which include lack of security, basic facilities and to ensure women’s participation in the industry’s activities,” she says.

The collective will have actors and technicians and will bring together women from the industry as its members.

They can already be members of the Association of Malayalam Movie Artists (AMMA) and Film Employees Federation of Kerala (FEFKA) simultaneously. B Unnikrishnan, general secretary, FEFKA, tells us that it is the need of the hour and both AMMA and FEFKA have given the red salute to it. “Beena Paul and Manju Warrier put forward the idea about having a forum for women where they can address gender specific issues. We all were for it as it is a necessity now, with a lot of incidents happening around that have been hurting women’s sentiments,” he adds.

A discussion about such a collective was held at the

Kerala Chalachitra Academy

on Wednesday during their general body meeting. The team also met Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Thursday evening. “With the support of the government, we are planning to take different women empowerment measures such as scholarships for cinema studies, maternity benefits for women employees and also pension schemes,” says Beena.

The collective is never an anti-men initiative, a close associate hastens to explain, and “It is a platform where women will get to talk face-to-face with the rest of the people in the industry, solve issues in an amicable manner and create a women-friendly atmosphere. Through the Women Collective, we aim to create a policy on equal women’s participation, a better environment and better working conditions for women.”