If all one needed was a sign, then the Women in Cinema Collective (WCC) has found hundreds of those. This past week, women film practitioners have come forward from across the country, genres and departments to participate in signature campaigns to support the WCC, strengthening its protest against misogynistic practices in the Malayalam film industry. The protest will mark an important moment when the history of Indian cinema is told; the signature campaign itself a show of strength — the mere number of women who work in the industry, and, consequentially, the pressing need for fairer and safer practices.

On June 29, eight women film practitioners from Mumbai, New Delhi and Kolkata co-initiated a signature campaign on social media to protest a move that has been slammed as "anti-woman" by the WCC. Their statement read, "As women working in film across genres and industries in India we received the news of AMMA (Association of Malayalam Movie Artistes) reinstating actor Dileep, who is an accused in the abduction and molestation of an actor, with shock and deep disappointment." With this ongoing campaign, which has 290 signatories so far, and a letter of solidarity from the Kannada film industry, the WCC's effort is no longer a lone movement in regional cinema, but one of national concern. The WCC was formed last year, in November, after prominent women from the Malayalam film industry petitioned to the chief minister of Kerala, Pinarayi Vijayan, requesting prompt action in the case. Actor Revathi, a prominent figure in Indian cinema, is one of the founding members of the WCC and says that while one has heard of several incidents of violence against women, she couldn't believe that "an incident as horrendous as this has happened". "It is unbelievable what our colleague had to go through. It shocked us so much that it gave birth to a movement," she tells us over a phone call.