Leena Manimekalai

Leena Manimekalai is a writer, director, actor, and a poet working independently. She has written five different poetic anthologies and a bunch of films. Leena is from is from Srivilliputtur. She completed her high school at the Holy Cross Convent in 1995. She studied at the Madurai Kamarajar University, Tamil Nadu. She has done Media and Conflict Resolution EU Fellowship in the year 2005. Also, she did a Commonwealth Fellowship on Women in Film in 2008, PSBT Film Fellowship on Tamil Women Poetry. She has done Visual Ethnography from The School of Oriental and African Studies, 2012.

She is a Charles Wallace Visiting Scholar at the University of London since September 2011. Leena was the artist in residence at the University of Chicago from March 2013 to April 2013. She is in a relationship with Yesvand Rajendran. He is a sculptor. Leena lives in Chennai. Leena currently owns a production house called Leena Manimekalai Productions. In 2003, Leena directed a 45-minute long documentary ‘Mathamma’ that captures a practice in Mangattucheri near Arokonam, Chennai of devoting a girl child to deity. Her next project was Parai released in 2004 that puts a light on the condition of Dalits, especially women taking Siruthondamadevi village as an example. Both the movies had a great political impact resulting in the intervention of police to improve the condition of women.

Break the Shackles was another 50-minute documentary released in 2004. It focused on how LPG (Liberalization, Privatisation, and Globalisation) in India neglects the well-being of downtrodden people, especially Dalits. She released a video poem of five minutes called Love Lost. It was from one of her poetry anthologies that described the urban definition of relationships and its deterioration. Next was an Indo-German Cross-Cultural Documentary released in 2005, ‘Connecting Lines’ under EU Fellowship. It contained four protagonists (two from India and two from Germany) and their struggles.
 

Altar was a 50-minute documentary released in 2005. It showed the child marriages and other customs and traditions of a community, Kambalathu residing in the central parts of Tamil Nadu. Waves After Waves, a 60-minute documentary showed the transformation of the Tsunami survived children of 2004 by different art and Psychological practices. It was released in the year 2006. Leena’s other works include A Hole in the Bucket, Goddesses, Sengadal, My Mirror is the Door and ballad of Resistance. She acted as a protagonist in movies like Chellamma, Love Lost, White Cat, and Sengadal. Leena has received a lot of honors and awards through her documentaries and poetry.

Silver Trophy for Best Documentary at Europe Film Festival (2004), Paris and Norway Independent Diaspora Festivals (2005), Golden Conch at Mumbai International Film Festival (2008), etc, are few of the awards that she received. Leena is presently working on documentaries like I Will Not Keep Quiet, Is it too Much to Ask, The Sunshine, Rains Shall Come and Neermathalampoo.