Sept. 27, 2023 - Filmmaker Prathiba Natesan Batley (DIRTY SECRETS)
DIRTY SECRETS, 4min., USA
Directed by Prathiba Natesan Batley
DIRTY SECRETS is autobiographical dance short film with an all women cast and crew, that traces a lifetime of sexual abuse and harassment across my lifespan in both the east and the west which is a surprisingly common story. This is an international collaboration across a cast and crew from the US, Malaysia, and India.
https://www.eyakkamdance.org/
https://www.instagram.com/eyakkamdance/
Get to know the filmmaker:
1. What motivated you to make this film?
My dance company Eyakkam’s mission is to make the beautiful, traditional dance form of Bharatanatyam which has a troubled past and present more current. Eyakkam means movement in my mother tongue Tamil meaning a social movement, a political movement, a physical movement, or a musical movement. I want to remove the caste and religious hegemonies from the dance form while giving women more agency as actors and creators. I want to use this dance form to talk about current issues and take it to the masses rather than to just a few classes or castes.
I cannot exactly point out when I started thinking about writing/making Dirty Secrets, but I remember being affected deeply every time I or someone else experienced sexual harassment/abuse/violence. Like I say in my film, we share, comment, like, subscribe, or cancel but often do nothing. When the Nirbhaya gang rape case (in Delhi) and a series of inhuman sexual violence cases became more public in India I realized how women and their bodies were weaponized by the political organizations or groups in question. It is perhaps the anger or ineptness that I cannot change people’s minds or perhaps it is the hope that I might spark a debate amongst survivors to come out and discuss their struggles more openly that motivated me to make this film. And finally, the chair I sit on has four legs – my husband without whom I could not have had the courage to talk about my personal experiences, my brother who is an unwavering supporter of my works, my dance teacher who is like my second mother, and my late mother who trusted me to do what I believed in irrespective of popular opinion.
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