Event
Film screening and discussion with director Leena Manimekalai
New York
Friday, October 4
6:00 - 8:30 PM
501 Schermerhorn Hall, Morningside Campus
Registration is required, along with photo ID
Co-sponsored by the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Cultures - Barnard College, the South Asia Institute at Columbia University, and in collaboration with ARC, join us on Friday, October 4th for a film screening of Maadathy, an unfairy tale (2019, 90 minutes) and Kaali (Performance documentary, 2022, 8 minutes). Q & A will follow the screening with Tamil director Leena Manimekalai, moderated by Barnard professor Rachel McDermott.
About the films:
Manimekalai has often sought to shine a light on social and political issues through her films. Leena spent 2017 traveling to more than 35 villages interviewing families belonging to the Puthirai Vannar, a Tamil caste referred to as the "unseeables," about their lives. Through these interviews, she learned about the legend of Maadathy, an ancestor who was raped and killed but later returned to her community as a protector, causing the entire village to go blind. The legend inspired Leena to make Maadathy: An Unfairy Tale, her first narrative feature, which premiered at the Busan International Film Festival in 2019 and played at numerous festivals around the world.
Kaali is a performance documentary depicting the goddess wandering the streets of Toronto in Manimekalai's body, meeting people and searching for belonging. The poster of Kaali depicts the filmmaker herself dressed up as the Hindu goddess Kali, a tradition celebrated in her village of Tamil Nadu during festivals—but with a twist. In the poster, as in the film, Manimekalai is holding aloft an LGBTQ+ pride flag and smoking a cigarette. Once the poster was shared on social media there was an uproar from far-right Hindu nationalist groups who violently threatened Manimekalai, along with her family and crew. Manimekalai has since battled censorship along with legal challenges for her right to artistic freedom of expression.
You can read more about Leena Manimekalai in ARC's report Art is Power: 20 Artists on How They Fight for Justice and Inspire Change.
Participants
Leena Manimekalai
Leena Manimekalai is an acclaimed filmmaker with a rich portfolio of multiple award-winning films with an impressive exhibition record covering over 100 International Film Festivals. Her titles include the acclaimed ‘Maadathy-an unfairy tale’, ‘the Sengadal-the Dead sea’, ‘White Van Stores’, ‘Is it too much to ask’, ‘Goddesses’ and ‘My Mirror is the Door’. Wonder Women, a series she collaborated on as Producer in India, won a Daytime Emmy for Best Travel and Adventure Program in 2017. She was chosen as BAFTA India Breakthrough Talent (2022-23), named Artist-in-Residence by the Jackman Humanities Institute - University Toronto (2023) and Centre for Free Expression - Toronto Metropolitan University (2023), profiled as one of the twenty artists who inspire change globally by PEN America(2023). She has a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Film from York University and is currently a Fellow at Artists at Risk Connection, and the Center for Ethics and Writing at Bard College, New York.
Rachel McDermott
Rachel Fell McDermott is Professor of Asian and Middle Eastern Cultures and specializes in South Asia, especially India and Bangladesh. She received her B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1981, her M.Div. from Harvard Divinity School in 1984, and her Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1993. Her research interests focus on Bengal, in eastern India and Bangladesh; she has published extensively on the Hindu-goddess-centered religious traditions from that part of the subcontinent and is now involved in a research project on Kazi Nazrul Islam, both the “Rebel Poet” of India and the National Poet of Bangladesh. She is also committed to the study of comparative religion, and teaches comparative courses in which important religious themes are traced across cultures.