#92 FiLiA meets: Vaishnavi Sundar

Vaishnavi Sundar is a self-taught filmmaker, writer, and grassroots activist. She is from Chennai, in the south of India. Vaishnavi produced and directed India's first feature-length documentary, called But What Was She Wearing? She is the alumna of the prestigious International Visitor Leadership Program, a professional exchange program funded by the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. For this podcast, she joins FiLiA’s Raquel Rosario Sánchez in discussion.

Vaishnavi is the founder of Women Making Films, which is known for its effort to break the glass ceiling within the fraternity of domestic and world cinema. She has written, directed, and produced all her films, under her own production company, Lime Soda Films. 

Even though But What Was She Wearing is India's only film on the sexual harassment women suffer in the workplace that covered voices from women across caste, class, region and religious differences, it earned her the title of “cancelled feminist” among some left-wing sectors, and she has since been wearing it on her sleeve, with pride. 

Vaishnavi was “cancelled” on the basis of her political opinion women’s sex-based rights ought to be protected and that men should not be in women’s sex segregated safe spaces. Vaishnavi centres women in all her films, her writing and she is unapologetically pro-women’s sex-based rights. When she is not filming or writing scathing rebuttals to liberal feminist drivel, she is busy logging all things WTF on her new VLOG channel on Youtube.

You can learn more about Vaishnavi’s work here and on the Lime Soda Films Website

Watch the trailer for But What Was She Wearing?

Or connect through Twitter @Vaishax

This podcast was edited by wonderful FiLiA volunteer Elena