Leena Manimekalai: From Rural to Global

Peeping through the headlines these days is Leena Manimekalai a writer from the small village of Srivilliputhur in Tamil Nadu, now based in Toronto.

Leena is a Filmmaker, poet, actor and director who never fails to mention her rural homeland.  Manimekalai’s documentary “Break the Shackles” is based on the effects and repercussions of globalisation on rural Tamil Villages on the other hand “A Hole in the Bucket” talks about the dynamics of water crisis in Chennai from the perspective of families with different income levels and she has also projected a fisherwomen as a lead protagonist in one of her works.

On Alan Turing Rainbow Festival she was heard saying “The rural & the tribal people find it easy to share to us about the topics that are usually considered taboo by the urban people”

In 2022 however she shared a poster of her film “Kaali” that shows the Hindu deity smoking a cigarette and holding a LGBTQ flag. After which she received immense amount of hate & threats on social media. Hashtags were created demanding her arrest soon after which FIR’s against her were filed at police stations.

Twitter has now pulled down Manimekalai’s tweet in which she shared the controversial poster of the documentary and has replaced it with the message that the tweet has been withheld in India in response to a legal demand.