Who Is Leena Manimekalai, The Filmmaker Who Is In Trouble Over Her Film Kaali's Poster

Leena Manimekalai grew up in a village in Madurai. She had an inter-caste and inter-religious marriage at the age of 18. She later walked out it, divorces and came out as a bisexual.

New Delhi: Leena Manimekalai is a Madurai-born filmmaker known for making films on the marginalized sections of society. Her work has often gathered controversy and this is not the first time that the filmmaker finds herself amidst a storm over her work. Recently, the Delhi Police and the Uttar Pradesh Police registered FIRs against her for 'hurting religious sentiments' with the poster of her upcoming documentary film 'Kaali'. The poster shows a woman in a goddess makeover smoking a cigarette and waving a Pride flag.

As she receives criticism from a section of people on the internet, many loyal supporters of her work have begun to use the hashtag 'Love you Leena Manimekalai' on social media as the filmmaker urged her supporters to. With a divided internet over the recent 'Kaali' poster controversy, let's take a look at some interesting details about the Canada-based filmmaker.

• Leena Manimekalai grew up in a village in Madurai. She had an inter-caste and inter-religious marriage at the age of 18. She later walked out of it, divorced and came out as a bisexual.


• Leena attended film screenings at film societies with her father who was a Tamil professor. Her father wrote a thesis on the veteran filmmaker Tamil director P Bharathiraja. 


• To support her family after her father's death, Leena worked at an IT firm in Bengaluru for a few years. She later switched jobs before realizing her true calling and directed her first film, a documentary 'Mahatma' in 2002.


• Leena's debut feature film was not cleared by the censor board initially which cited 'vulgar and obscene language', 'nudity' and 'impact on friendly relations between India and Sri Lanka', as Indian Express reported.


• She faced similar censorship issues with her latest film 'Maadathy- An Unfairy Tale'.


• In 2017, Leena identified filmmaker Susi Ganesan as a sexual abuser through a Facebook post. Ganesan later filed a defamation suit against her.

Leena has won several accolades and fellowships for her work on the marginalized sections of the society.

'Kaali' had its first screening at the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto last week. Since then, her film has been generating controversy for 'disrespectful depiction of Hindu deities' and the aforementioned controversy.