With The New Session of ‘Maitri: Female First Collective’; Prime Video Dives Further Into The Challenges Faced by Women in Entertainment 

Despite the numerous obstacles, there are countless women in the entertainment industry, and they love their work. In the recent past, women who are part of the industry have broken barriers, whether it is taking up roles on and off the camera or talking about issues such as pay parity, representation of women on screen and creating a safe space for women to speak out within the industry. But there needs to be a continued effort.

In keeping up with its effort to make the industry more inclusive, Prime Video released a new session of ‘Maitri: Female First Collective’; which dives further into the challenges faced by women in entertainment. Nine strong women from Indian entertainment came together for this session.; Moderated by the creator and curator of Maitri, Smriti Kiran, the participants comprised Aparna Purohit, Creator – Maitri & Head of India Originals, Prime Video; Indhu VS, Writer & Director; Ratheena Plathottathil, Writer, Director & Producer; Elahe Hiptoola, Creator & Producer; Parvathy Thiruvothu, Actor & Director; Rima Kallingal, Actor, Producer & Performing Artist; Shreya Dev Dube, Filmmaker & Cinematographer and Neha Parti Matiyani, Cinematographer. 

Maitri: Female First Collective is an endeavour to help build a community for women from media and entertainment where they can come together to discuss their experiences, challenges and successes and offer their perspectives and advice on bringing about a positive shift. The latest session features discussions on making the industry more inclusive for women by creating more opportunities, recognizing the contribution and building a safer work environment.

“With the new session of Maitri, we wanted to take stock of where we stand with respect to diversity, equity and inclusion, understand the challenges ahead, and collaborate to find the right solutions,” said Aparna Purohit, head of India originals, Prime Video. “We are very heartened by the encouragement and support we have received for Maitri: Female First Collective so far. While it is a gradual journey, I am happy to see some change already coming through. To hear things like ‘we have women writers in our writers’ rooms’, or ‘our women characters have agency’ and ‘our content will definitely pass the Bechdel test’, in conversations with creators, for me, is a major step in the right direction. At Prime Video, we remain deeply committed to DEI. As the next step, we want to strive to have at least 30% women HODs across all our productions,” she added.

Prime Video also launched a dedicated social community for Maitri, making it easier for women in entertainment to connect, correspond and collaborate.

View Maitri’s social community here: Instagram |Facebook |YouTube| Twitter

 Smriti Kiran, creator and curator, Maitri said, “Maitri is a space we all wanted but didn’t have. It has been created to connect women working across the vast and varied Indian film industry, have honest conversations about challenges we face, try and find solutions to those problems and build opportunities that lead to a seismic shift in representation. It is that first step one hopes will lead to giant leaps.”

Watch the latest session of Maitri: Female First Collective here:

All the participants shared deeply personal experiences of having faced gender bias in some form and concluded that there is a great need for safe spaces where women can come out and share their experiences. Actor and director Parvathy Thiruvothu said that spaces like Maitri are essential because “It's somewhere I can talk to people like me, and they will understand and share their life lessons. I am working towards making sure that stories now are told from my, a woman’s perspective to the world.”

Neha Parti Matiyani, who is a Cinematographer shared, “I feel the misogyny now after 15 years, more than when I started. At that time, it did not bother me so much. Then I felt that I had to prove myself. But now it is hitting me that I am stuck in a specific zone professionally where people in the industry feel that because I am a woman, I can only work on a certain kind of films.” 

Rima Kallingal, Actor, Producer & Performing Artist said, “To bring a notable change, it is important for women in the industry not to cave in, but stand strong. Also, I believe when one feels uncomfortable speaking out the truth, is a red flag that we need to deal with.”

In an effort to create equal opportunities for women, creator and producer, Elahe Hiptoola never bargains with any female actor she work with. Hiptoola says, "I believe, you bring your strengths to the table, I bring mine. So, I never ever negotiate with female talent I work with." 

The participants agreed on the need to find viable ways to create a more balanced female representation through the powerful medium of modern storytelling. The forum decided that it was cardinal to have women in decision-making roles, so more women are employed, logistics are taken care of, and narratives created are balanced and do justice to the characters.  

This article has been posted in collaboration with Prime Video.