I relish participatory film-making, says Leena

‘I tried to erase myself and be a medium’

Film-maker Leena Manimekalai’s Maadathy: an Unfairy tale, a story about sexual assault suffered by a young Puthirai Vannar girl from men from another Dalit caste more dominant, said that she relishes “participatory film-making,” at an online screening of her much-talked about film organised by the Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies unit of the University of Minnesota on Friday.

Speaking about her film, Ms. Manimekalai said she wanted to be a medium to tell stories of people she empathises with.

“When I see (films from) mainstream industry, I see nothing about my people. So since 2002, I took a small digital camera, cheap microphones and pirated editing tools and went to villages, spoke to people and told the truth that I found to the rest of the world. In 2003, I made my first short documentary, Mathamma. In my first feature Sengadal, I told the story of refugees… refugees played refugees, the fisherfolk played the fisherfolk and I played the documentary film-maker. I started to relish participatory film-making. I was trying to erase myself and be a medium to tell stories of people I empathised with,” Ms. Manimekalai said.