Time women got serious on themselves, says Urmi Juvekar

Thiruvananthapuram: The tips on pitching stories given to women filmmakers at the IFFK Empowering Women for Cinema workshop would have worked equally well for men. Screenwriter Urmi Juvekar, who delivered the talk, told DC, “Pitching is genderless.” However she feels that a lot of times men go all their way to sell their script, while women would often be apologetic, even saying they are not really filmmakers. “Men would never do that. That is what we need to teach our women,” she said.

She said that women need to take themselves seriously. “What happens is that women are not trained to think that their opinion matters. They are not told that they can be good women even if they leave something that is usually their responsibilities, like cooking for someone,” she said. She shares the peculiar case of Germany’s film schools in which women outnumbered the men. Despite that, the women had to campaign for reservation in government funding, as most of the funds went to men. “Men get funding because women don’t take themselves seriously,” she said.

Even as she said that the notions need to be examined, she added, “Maybe the society is not going to do it. It is your own duty to do it.”  When asked whether there was  a female point-of-view while writing scripts, she says; “It is not just about writing strong women characters, but also seeing the things which are brushed under the carpet in a normal gaze. Man’s vulnerability is always brushed under the carpet unless it is a wonderful sunset shot, or he is pining for his girlfriend, or there is a big dramatic father’s death,” she said. (Watch ‘DC Avalkoppam’ videos on: https://www.facebook.com/deccanchroniclekerala/)