Filmmaker Leena Manimekalai is facing the outrage of people over the poster of her documentary Kaali, which depicts goddess Kaali smoking a cigarette and holding a trident in one hand and a LGBTQ flag in the other. Several FIRs have been filed against the filmmaker including two separate complaints in courts in Bihar, a case by Delhi police’s ISSO unit, a FIR in Madhya Pradesh and a complaint in Uttar Pradesh.
Amid the controversy, Leena took to Twitter on Thursday (July 7). In her tweet, she said that she ‘feels the whole nation’ wants to censor her. She added that she “do not feel safe anywhere’ at this point.
She tweeted, “It feels like the whole nation – that has now deteriorated from the largest democracy to the largest hate machine – wants to censor me. I do not feel safe anywhere at this moment.”
In another tweet, she pointed out how ‘trolls’ are after her ‘artistic freedom’. She wrote, “These trolls are after my artistic freedom. If I give away my freedom fearing this mindless rightwing mob mafia, I will give away everyone’s freedom. So I will keep it, come what may.”
Earlier during the day, Leena tweeted a photo that shows two people smoking while dressed in the costumes of Lord Shiva and a Hindu goddess. The photo has a striking similarity to the controversial poster. She captioned the photo, “Elsewhere”.
The original tweet with the movie poster has been now taken down by Twitter in response to ‘a legal demand’.
The Indian High Commission in Toronto with the Canadian authorities, canceled the screening of the film. Later, Toronto Metropolitan University and the Aga Khan Museum issued apologies for hurting the sentiments.
At the beginning of the controversy, the filmmaker had said, “Till the time I live, I wish to live with a voice that speaks what I believe without fear. If the price for that is my life, it can be given,” She wrote in a Twitter post.”
Talking about the documentary film, it is based on a woman strolling in the streets of Canada’s Toronto as the events take place in one evening.
