Who is Leena Manimekalai, the filmmaker accused of hurting religious sentiments with her documentary Kaali

Her debut feature Sengadal was not cleared initially by the CBFC, which cited “vulgar and obscene language”, “nudity” and “impact on friendly relations between India and Sri Lanka”. She experienced similar censorship battles with her most recent feature, Maadathy – An Unfairy Tale, about a woman who “is wronged because of her gender and caste,” but rises to become “a subaltern goddess”. The poster for that film also depicted Hindi iconography, with the titular heroine brandishing what appeared to be a trident. Maadathy is available to watch on the MUBI streaming service.

The filmmaker grew up in an agrarian family with connections to the CPI in Tamil Nadu’s Virudhunagar district. As a child, she attended screenings at film societies with her father, a first-generation graduate and Tamil professor whose thesis was on the veteran Tamil director P Bharathiraja. “But the space was too feudal, misogynistic and predatory for my sensibilities,” she told the Indian Express in 2019.

Manimekalai was forced to study engineering instead of the arts, and to get married at the age of 18 after the death of her father. But she walked out of her home, had an inter-caste and inter-religious marriage, divorced, came out as bisexual, and developed, according to the same Indian Express report, an ‘unbearable rage’ against injustice.

In a 2017 Facebook post, she wrote about a sexual harassment ordeal, and identified filmmaker Susi Ganesan as her abuser a year later. He filed a criminal defamation suit against her.

Kaali was first screened during Rhythms of Canada, a week-long festival celebrating multiculturalism, at the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto last weekend. The High Commission of India in Ottawa issued a press release on Tuesday stating that they had received complaints from leaders of the Hindu community in Canada about the disrespectful depiction of Hindu Gods on the poster of the film. “Our Consulate General in Toronto has conveyed these concerns to the organizers of the event. We are also informed that several Hindu groups have approached authorities in Canada to take action,” the release said.

The Cyber Crime Unit of the Delhi Police registered an FIR under Sections 153 A (promoting enmity between groups) and 295 A (outraging religious feelings) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The UP police filed the FIR on charges of criminal conspiracy, offense in place of worship, deliberately hurting religious sentiments, and intention to provoke breach of peace.