#MeToo in Mollywood: Samantha Ruth Prabhu asks Telangana govt to form Hema Committee-like report

Lauding the outcome of the Hema Committee report which opened a Pandora’s box of sexual abuses in Kerala’s Mollywood film industry, Southern actress Samantha Ruth Prabhu has called for a similar panel to probe the malaise in the Telugu filmdom.

She urged the Telangana film industry to release a similar report which would help in framing policies and ensure a safe working environment for women in the Telugu film industry.

“We, the women of the Telugu film industry, welcome the Hema Committee report and applaud the persistent efforts of the WCC in Kerala, which has laid the path to this moment,” Samantha, who has worked in several hit movies in her career, wrote in a story on Instagram.

“We hereby urge the Telangana government, to publish the submitted sub committee report on sexual harassment, which can help frame government and industry policies, to establish a safe working environment for women in the TFI (Telugu Film Industry),” the actor wrote.

The Justice K Hema Committee report, which was released recently, unveiled detailed allegations of sexual abuse by male actors, directors and other crew members in Mollywood.

Several film actors have since then shared their experience of facing sexual abuse in the industry, leading to FIR registration against industry strongmen like Mukesh, Siddique, Jayasurya, Maniyanpilla Raju, Idavela Babu and director Ranjith.

Samantha made her acting debut in the Telugu romance film Ye Maaya Chesave (2010), and won the Filmfare Award for Best Female Debut – South.

She became the second actress to win both the Filmfare Award for Best Actress – Tamil and Best Actress – Telugu in the same year, for her performances in the 2012 films Neethaane En Ponvasantham and Eega, respectively.

Over the next few years, she played the leading lady in top-grossing androcentric films such as Dookudu (2011), Seethamma Vakitlo Sirimalle Chettu (2012), Attarintiki Daredi (2013), Kaththi (2014), Theri (2016), 24 (2016), Mersal (2017), and Rangasthalam (2018).

Her performance in A Aa (2016) won Samantha her fourth Filmfare Award, and she gained further praise for her performances in Mahanati (2018), Super Deluxe (2019), and Majili (2019), and the Amazon Prime Video thriller series The Family Man (2021).

The last of these earned her a Filmfare OTT Award. In 2023, she had two critical and commercial failures in Shaakuntalam and Kushi.