UN Women Makes Gender Count in Filmmaking

New Delhi - Sampat Pal is a power centre. In the sugar-state of Uttar Pradesh in Northern India, she has re-introduced democracy. She has created an army, Gulabi Gang, of women clad in pink saris who make the authorities dispense justice on harassed women and ensure that their families accept the verdict. After Kim Longinotto picked up her story and shot it through her camera lens for Pink Saris, a documentary film, there is a chance that this inspirational story will now be heard.

Documentary films tell credible stories. UN Women gave this old yet extremely niche form of film-making the emphasis it deserves, especially to tell stories on gender by supporting a seminar, on Gender and Governance, at the Persistence Resistance Festival, a documentary film festival held in New Delhi from 8 to 10 February 2010.

Gargi Sen, the curator of the festival, pointed out that since some of the most academic work is happening in documentary films. The film festival was the ideal event to hold an academic debate on the role of women in politics, which was the topic for the first discussion organised by UN Women. Apart from the address by Rita Sarin, Albeena Shakil and Urvashi Butalia, the discussion also featured a dialogue between Rahul Roy, esteemed filmmaker and Shohini Ghosh, the moderator for the seminar.

On 9th March 2010, the Rajya Sabha (Upper House) in the Indian Parliament passed the Women’s Reservation bill according to which 33% seats in the parliament and state legislatures will be reserved for women. While all the panellists at the seminar welcomed the bill, Rita Sarin, the Global Vice President and country head of The Hunger Project in India, raised the question of training the elected women representatives.

So far the gender debate has been synonymous with women’s issues. But in a rare event, the house opened the subject of gender to include male, female and even trans-sexual groups of people. Trailers of Rahul Roy’s films like When Four Friends Meet and Majma were screened. The former delved into the aspirations of the young men and their thoughts on sexuality. It opened a whole new debate on masculinities and the role men have to play in gender movements.

“Empowering women political leadership is one of the primary objectives of UN Women,” said John Borogoyary, Programme Officer, UN Women South Asia. The discussion on the Representation of Women in Films and Media debated whether stereotypes of women are used in films. Sanjay Srivastava, a sociology expert, tried to link gender to consumerism through his discourse. The second part of the seminar also featured panellists like Harsh Mander and Mamta Jaitley. The session concluded with Kim Longinotto’s interview whose films are an invaluable body of work on gender studies.

In the past UNIFEM has collaborated with filmmakers to highlight stories which reflect the gross inequalities that exist in our society. The City Beautiful by Rahul Roy, which is a look at the lives of weavers whose lives have been damaged by globalisation, was one such collaboration. The seminar was a continuation of the same support because UN Women believes in the power of an honest narrative to expose some unknown realities.

Documentary films serve the same purpose before a wider audience. And as Rahul Roy put it during the seminar, “To think democracy is awarded to us is problematic. Also, we may have done well in political democracy but social democracy is yet to be established.”