We have all been witness to the recent outpourings from various women in entertainment, media and film industry and other walks of life about their experiences with men crossing the line, taking liberties with their personal space and sexual harassment. This is being called India’s #MeToo movement, some people have also coined the hashtag #MeTooIndia for it. What started with Tanushree Dutta’s allegation of Nana Patekar, and then accounts of incidents about stand-up comic Utsav Chakraborty, soon snowballed and was used as a platform to expose behaviour of many people in comedy, media, films – almost the entire AIB gang, Chetan Bhagat, Vikas Behl (and in this connection Anurag Kashyap), and Rajat Kapoor amongst others, for their behaviour with women assistants, journalists and colleagues. And even how people who were made aware of these incidents in the past chose to not do anything about them.
MAMI being a well-known festival and academy has shown support for the movement through their social handles.
The content of the note is:
We as an Academy (MAMI) strongly support the #MeToo movement. In light of recent developments, we have decided to drop the following films from our line up – AIB’s Chintu Ka Birthday and Rajat Kapoor’s Kadakh. We want to use this opportunity to open up the conversation and find solutions to harassment and sexual misconduct in the workplace. Starting with this edition of the festival, we would like to unite the community to find positive and constructive ways to deal with it.
This is definitely big news for women safety and consent, at least for the entertainment industry!
F.i.g.h.t C.l.u.b 