Kochi: The row between Kochi mayor Soumini Jain and movie director Jude Anthany Joseph intensified on Friday with the mayor saying that the director should learn to respect women before making films for them.
The mayor took to social media to respond to an earlier Facebook post by Joseph. “Jude is a good director and his skill was reflected in his ‘heartbroken’ post that turned the hunted into the hunter,” Jain wrote.
Joseph, who was slapped with a criminal case for insulting the mayor, posted a note on social media on Thursday to share his version of the incidents that led to the case. He said he had only protested the mayor’s refusal to grant permission to shoot a short film in the corporation-owned Subhash Park in Ernakulam.
Jain said she was just going by the corporation council’s decision to keep the park out of bounds for film crews who often caused damage to the plants and disturbed the ambiance of the park. “I could not overcome the council’s decision just because Jude had fixed a date to shoot,” she wrote.
Jude said he wanted to shoot a short film on atrocities against women and children and actor-friend Nivin Pauly had agreed to do the film when he was free. The mayor, however, refused to give him permission to shoot in the park. Joseph later shot the film in a park owned by the Cochin Port Trust.
The mayor alleged that Joseph yelled at her without any provocation and said he would go ahead with the plan with or without her permission. “I too am concerned about the current incidents targeting women and children but it does not send out a good signal when someone who wanted to talk about the issue ended up insulting me,” she wrote.
If Joseph could shout at the mayor in public, what could be the situation of other women, she asked. She said she was not interested in pursuing a legal case against Joseph but was firm on the demand that the director publicly apologize for insulting a woman. “It was an irony that a man who refused to speak decently to women was out making a short film against the injustice faced by women,” Jain wrote.
“It was easy to make a short film to prove one’s social commitment. But you have to do away with the anti-woman attitude in your language and body language. Each of us have to reform ourselves for the society to get reformed,” she added.
Joseph had said that he was sorry to have landed in a case when he was trying to do something good. He also vowed not to engage in any social work from now on. The director is out on bail.