Kerala - Thrissur   

`Films portraying male dominance'

Staff Reporter

`Women forced to wage a relentless battle'

THRISSUR: A discussion on `Women as image consumers' was held as part of the ongoing Gargi women's film festival here on Thursday.

The participants said that films were trying to impose male chauvinism to ensure the survival of superstars. Women were called upon to wage a relentless battle against the imposition of images of male domination, which reinforces a patriarchal society, they said.

The writer P. Geeta said that the films such as `Ustad,' `Meesa Madhavan' and `Runway' had adopted an outright anti-women stance.

Power structure

The woman activist K. Ajitha said that women should earn a deserving place in all realms of society by fighting against the existing power structure and male domination.

The writer Rose Mary and the film-maker Rosy Thampi also participated in the discussions. The writer Sister Jasmi said that it should be remembered that there were films which portrayed men also in bad light. Instead of focussing on the anti-woman dimension of the films, this aspect also should be looked into. The tendency to portray men and women in a degenerated manner was a reflection of cultural decadence, she said.

The Tamil feature film `Kanavu Meipada Vendum,' directed by Janaki Viswanathan, and the Telugu documentary `Smarana' made by C. Vanaja (based on interviews with mothers of Naxal activists killed in police encounters), the English feature film `Portrait of a Lady' directed by Jane Campion were among the films screened.

Madhusree Dutta's `Memories of Fear' was one of the remarkable films screened. It is an attempt to capture the process of socialisation of girl children which makes them vulnerable to violence in later life. The English documentary `Gujarat: The Laboratory of Hindu Rashtra', directed by Suma Josson, the Malayalam feature film `Idavazhi' directed by Jayasree Nair, the Tamil feature film `Righta Thapa' directed by Bhuvana Ramamoorthy and the Malayalam short film `Jalakangal' produced by students of Vimala College, Thrissur were some of the other films screened at the festival.

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`Films portraying male dominance'

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