The conversation the film invokes is compelling, poignant, and handled with the utmost sensitivity. 

At the film’s core is the urgent demand for the rights and safety of India’s domestic workers. Though their official registered number within the workforce is four million, the film asserts them to be somewhere around 80 million unofficially. While the #MeToo movement, also the source of the film’s title, might have remained confined mostly to the urban, English-speaking upper class, the film and the movement it speaks of, casts a much-needed wider net to talk about workplace harassment for all who work as domestic help in Indian households. 
The message is driven home further by drawing attention to the power and reach of theater that is not only capable of transforming its audiences but also the performers. The result, thus, presented is a well-rounded whole that is assertive, lucid, and impactful in the message it delivers.

Main Bhi (#MeToo) | Short Film of the Day

Gender as a discourse is endlessly layered and nuanced, demanding a constant engagement with its several aspects. The short film is a skilled endeavour to interact with one of these countless threads. By taking the viewer into the problematic thoughts of its protagonist, the film initiates a relevant conversation about identifying, accepting and addressing the problem within. All actions stem from thought, which thereby becomes the first point of correction and amendment. This is the message the film communicates and accentuates through its character of a writer who sits at his desk, indulging himself in imagined situations with the women that surround him. Further, an interplay with ideas of guilt, acceptance, forgiveness and growth is invoked, suggesting that it is only human to find yourself going astray sometimes. However, it is the desire and inclination to check oneself in time that is the most relevant and important concern in furthering the cause of gender equality and ending harassment and discrimination intrinsic to its contemporary dynamics.

#Itoo | Short Film of the Day

The short film exhibits a smooth use of camera and visuals to convey its story with a notable structuring of the narrative. The plot is about two young men on their way to meet a local goon named Attack. The film makes an attempt to introduce the viewer to interesting characters as it progresses and reveals the sexual abuse and harassment of women committed by Attack. It further shows potential for an intelligent choice of shots and offers convincing performances by its lead characters. Suspense is invoked with regards to the motive of the two men. The film indeed succeeds at it since how the visit eventually unfolds is likely to catch even the most attentive viewer by surprise.

Attack | Short Film Nominee

The film offers a very unabashed, direct glimpse into the extremely patriarchal world women inhabit, and the subsequent sexism they have to deal with on a daily basis. It presents the many statements that are made in the context of women’s safety, and then goes ahead to display the absurdity of it all. 

The ensuing narrative questions the location of men in a society that refuses to hold them accountable, simply putting all checks and balances on women, instead of looking for corrective measures for the problem itself. The characters played by the various actors are convincing, and even though the narrative is direct and simple, not venturing into the space of nuance and grey territories, it achieves precisely what it has set out to do - raise awareness and draw attention to a compelling issue.

Nazarbattu | Short Film Nominee

Workplace and street sexual harassment are more common realities of a woman's life than most men choose to acknowledge or accept. The short film endeavours an engagement with not simply the unease, disconcertment, and in several cases, the trauma of the women who are at the receiving end of this, but goes a step further. It brings in men into the conversation, allowing the situation to be approached by a man who had perhaps never looked at it in this manner. What follows next, at a breakneck pace, are disturbing realisations on his part when he begins to finally comprehend that he too, whether implicitly or explicitly, is also part of the same problem. From his own friends and companions, to absolute strangers, men he might have stumbled across all his life, innumerable of them are complicit in it, making the problem too prevalent for him to ignore anymore. On the whole, the film is well-intentioned and offers a zealous effort to do its bit to add to the dialogue on gender.

Sick | Short Film Nominee

An office camera captures the boss of an organisation sexually assaulting his female employee. The woman had tried
to fight off his advances, but he caught her in a moment of seclusion and tried to overpower her. The
insolence of the man is plain shocking, even when someone tries to intervene. 
The film attempts to contribute to the awareness and awakening that was especially brought on by the #MeToo
movement across the world, empowering women to speak up and not carry the shame of an act that was not
their fault. It further urges the viewer to not be a mute observer, for staying silent is equivalent to supporting or enabling the oppressor.

Unfold | Short Film Nominee

Dhaga is an attempt to talk about the dark reality of sexual harassment and assault of women in a patriarchal world. Men might consider women no more than playthings to be oppressed and brutalised as per their whims; it is the same conversation that the plot wants to add to. Though well-intentioned, its engagement with the primary concerns could have gained from a little more nuance when it comes to the discussion of gender, identity and violence inflicted on female bodies.

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