Leena Yadav doesn’t like being addressed as a ‘female’ director. She feels that by using such terms, we try and put people and art, inside a box. “When I made Shabd, it was my first film and I was only asked questions on being a woman director. I was being put in a box and then I thought that I am never ever going to make films only about women as that is what I am expected to do.
But I broke that with Parched. The thing is I don’t like being called a woman director. We don’t define a male director, we don’t call them a male director. Why are we putting things like Parched female centric, why are we putting things in a box. It’s much more complicated I know that in some parts of the world they say that you are bringing attention to the fact that there are not enough female voices, not enough female narratives.”
Yadav made these comments at the Literature, Information, Film, Frame, TV and Theatre (LIFF) India Filmotsav 2017 – World Cine Fest, where her Parched was screened.
The director also believes that Indians, despite having created the Kamasutra, are sexually very repressed. “We created the Kamasutra and now how have we become these people who use words like ‘chhee’, ‘haw’. I think a lot of violence is caused… We are sexually very repressed”.
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Yadav feels that such issues need to be spoken about in public so as to eradicate the taboos around them. “In lot of interviews in India, If I would use the word breast or sex. People would react like ‘how can she talk like that’. We need to talk about sex. Web really do. There are too many issues buried deep and there is so much of repression because of that.”
“There is so much of lack of knowledge of sex amongst women especially in India… I want to talk about sex a lot more now,” she added
Image Courtesy: Catch News