Over the summer, Toronto-based Indian filmmaker Leena Manimekalai uploaded a poster on Twitter of her upcoming documentary Kaali. The image showed the Hindu goddess smoking a cigarette and holding a rainbow flag among other accoutrements.
Predictably, it received widespread backlash from the Hindutva community in India for “hurting religious sentiments.” But the popularly dubbed “poster row” challenges us to consider disturbing political questions that Manimekalai’s work has persistently probed.
