An association of female artists in the Malayalam film industry has expressed its displeasure at AMMA's decision to take back actor Dileep in the largest association of Malayalam film artists. The all-woman grouping called Women in Cinema Collective even put up a post on Facebook expressing their dissent, but it was slammed for boycotting the crucial AMMA meeting where it could have raised its voice.
Actress Rima Kallingal, a member of the WCC, clarified its stand vis-a-vis with the AMMA while speaking on a TV channel.
"Many netizens wanted to know how can WCC raise questions without attending AMMA meeting. It is true, many people are curious to know why we put up such a Facebook post without attending the meeting. We have our own reasons. We have had various kinds of discussions with AMMA since the past one year and what has we got? Everything was futile. Facebook is a public platform. When a platform like AMMA doesn't seem to function in a democratic manner, we felt that we could use the page of WCC as a space to speak up.”
She further added, “Everything is before your eyes. When an organisation stands with an accused who was jailed for three months, whose bail was rejected twice how can we even be part of the association. In fact, AMMA should convince us (WCC) as to why we should we be part of it. The issue should not just limit to a person or to the industry, it should bring a social consciousness. A big movement is happening across the world and we just want to create a safe and open space for it.”
Actors who had earlier raised demand for expulsion of Dileep such as Prithviraj and Ramya Nambeeshan neither attended the AMMA meeting nor have responded to the matter so far. AMMA’s new president Mohanlal also did not respond.
The AMMA members even barred media from reporting the meeting on Sunday.