Actress assault case verdict sends wrong message to future generations: Rima Kallingal at IFFK

Thiruvananthapuram: Actor Rima Kallingal said the verdict in the 2017 actress assault case was “not reassuring in any way” and warned that it sent a dangerous message to future generations. Rima spoke to Onmanorama after attending ‘Avalkoppam', a solidarity protest held at Tagore Theatre during the 30th International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK).

“I’m really worried about that, because I think we have a fabulous young crowd growing up watching this, and it's not fair to them. I think we need to give them a much stronger message about what's happening around us, and I really feel we owe it to them, and I'm picking up the baton. I'm hoping everybody else does that too, as a woman and a woman in cinema,” Rima said.

Referring to the long struggle for justice, Kallingal stressed that the movement was never about individual attacks but about dismantling entrenched systems. “From the very beginning, we've been telling that it's not individual personal attacks. We're talking about a system that has constantly put us at the back end, constantly gated us, and constantly harassed us. And we're talking about that system, and we're talking about dismantling that, and we're going to chip away at it as however slow it is, we're not going to stop like on the day of the verdict, what I said is more so ever than ever today, because I think the struggle, the real struggles, just started,” Rima added.

She acknowledged that meaningful change would take time but expressed cautious optimism. She pointed out that patriarchal structures were relatively recent in human history and said each small victory needed to be recognised. “We are the first generation in a hundred years of cinema to call this out openly. That itself marks a tectonic shift,” she said, noting that younger generations of men and women were increasingly fighting these battles together.

‘Avalkoppam’, organised as part of IFFK, drew a large turnout of film personalities, activists and festival delegates in solidarity with the survivor.