Rights groups welcome ban on abusive Tamil director

Chennai, Oct 18 (IANS) The decision by the Tamil Film Producers Council (TFPC) and the South Indian Film Artistes Association (SIFAA) to ban a director from making any film for one year after he slapped an actor has been hailed by human rights groups in Tamil Nadu.

Actor Padmapriya, who was shooting for Tamil film "Mirugam", had Saturday complained to the producers and artistes' associations that director Samy had abused and slapped her while filming the movie.

"The director behaved like a psycho on the sets. Even after shooting hours, he tried to misbehave," she said.

"The 'Mirugam' incident has caused a great deal of embarrassment for the Tamil film industry. The decision to ban Samy from directing films for a year was unanimous," TFPC vice-president Anbalaya Prabhakaran said.

The decision of the federations is being seen here as long overdue and an attempt at bettering the industry's image.

"Not only the South Indian film industry but every film industry in the country, including Bollywood, needs to take a wake up call on labour norms and gender bias at the ordinary worker level," Vasanthi Devi, former chairperson of the Tamil Nadu Commission for Women, told IANS.

SIFFA vice president Vijayakumar said: "It is for the welfare of Tamil cinema that we have accepted the unions' decision. We have taken this extreme step in order to prevent such incidents in the future."

The unions' decision came following a severe reprimand from the National Commission for Women (NCW) to the Film Employees Federation of South India.

In September 2004, the NCW had issued a directive to the federation to ask all its 23 member-unions to issue advertisements in newspapers saying they would not discriminate against women.

"Violations would be sternly dealt with under labour laws," NCW official Nirmala Seetharaman had warned.

The NCW was then investigating how women, and even some men, were denied jobs in the industry by an organised gang of "film societies (unions known as societies) that are run like cartels".

"The cartels have immense power and not even the smallest job in the industry can go to anyone who's not a member," Seetharaman had observed three years ago.

Commenting on the double standards of the film industry, Cho Ramaswamy, a highly respected commentator and editor of Tughlak magazine, pointed out that Tamil TV channels "regularly put on air serials which malign women in a very devastating manner. Nobody seems to care, perhaps because they are being telecast by Sun TV."

There are a host of South Indian actors who have succumbed to the adverse effects of discrimination in the industry, the more recent ones among them being Silk Smitha and Mayuri who were driven to suicide.

They followed the footsteps of yesteryear stars Savithri, Shobha, Prema, Lakshmishri, Jayalakshmi, Vijayasri, Acharo Chitra, Kalpana, Kannada Manjula, Divya Bharathi, who all died under unclear circumstances, many leaving notes that pointed to the callousness of the industry.

It is in this backdrop that the ban on director Samy is being seen as a positive step by gender rights activists.

Click the Movie button below for more info:
Mirugam