Cinema Paradiso Club, a Facebook collective comprising of Malayalam Cinema lovers, has officially announced that they will be excluding actors Dileep and Alencier Ley Lopez from their annual awards, in the wake of allegations of sexual misconduct raised against them. Their movies, however, will continue to be a part of the competition.
Stating that their aim was to facilitate detailed analyses of movies, the group said that it was imperative to look at both the ‘positives’ and ‘negatives’ that have come from movies in recent times. They called the harassment faced by women at workplace as one such ‘negative’.
They proceeded to say that both the popularity of the medium, and the proficiency of the artist in it, allowed perpetrators to cover up for their behaviour. They said, the argument that ‘cinema ought to be looked at objectively’ was not fair towards the victim of sexual assault. In other words, it wasn’t entirely possible to separate the art from the artist.
“As a group comprising of socially and politically aware members, the collective has decided to exclude Dileep and Alencier Ley Lopez from the final poll list. However, the movies that these actors have been a part of will continue to be in the running for the awards,” said that statement.
Cinema Paradiso Club (CPC) was founded seven years ago, but began handing out awards only recently. Talking about their move to exclude the two actors, Arun Ashok, a member of CPC said in a TNM report, “We are not passing any judgement against these actors. But a popular opinion arose that nominating these actors would be totally unfair to the victims they have been accused of harassment.”
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Dileep’s name had come up for his performance in Kammara Sambhavam, while Alencier was nominated as the Best Supporting Actor for several of his performances.
“The discussions first began when Alencier was accused of sexual harassment back in October 2018. The actor even admitted to the allegations later on. In Dileep’s case, the matter is sub judice and he is an accused in the high profile case. Therefore nominating him based on popularity, with the shadow of the sexual assault charges looming over the actor, would be inappropriate, we decided,” added Arun.
Image Courtesy: TNIE, Deccan Chronicle