Leeza Mathew: "Emotional abuse is so normalized that it is scary"

The crew of 'Caged'. With no prior knowledge of filmmaking, director Leeza Mathew reached out to people on social media groups and managed to bring on board professionals in the field.

Leeza Mathew’s directorial debut Caged opens with a chilling line across the screen - ‘Heaven in her smile, hell in her eyes’. The short film revolves around the lives of four female friends undergoing different forms of emotional abuse. We see them suffering, even reaching out to each other at times, but ultimately, one of them gives in to the ugly situation. The film ends with a note on the UN's description of domestic abuse as a ‘shadow pandemic’, with a 20 percent increase in cases during the lockdown. ‘Abuse is not always physical. Emotional abuse is even more life-threatening’, it states.

Looking at the list of awards Caged has won at film festivals across the world, Mathew’s labour of love has certainly touched a universal chord. But even before the accolades and awards came her way, the first-time filmmaker had already experienced what she calls her ‘wow moment’.

“I had reached out to someone on Facebook requesting them to give me their feedback about my film and she in turn connected me to Jeo Baby,” Mathew says.

Not only was The Great Indian Kitchen director appreciative of her film, Jeo Baby also encouraged her to make more films. “He told me that more women should come and tell women’s stories,” recalls the Seattle-based Mathew over a Zoom video call.

Leeza Mathew
The inception

A trained Bharatanatyam dancer who runs her own dance school in the US, Mathew has scripted and directed dramas for the Malayali association but donning the director’s hat was never on her list of things-to-do. “The stage is where I belong but with the pandemic and lockdown, everything was shut. My friends kept encouraging me to make a short film because I love watching movies, but I had no interest,” she says.

It was during that time that she started hearing a lot of real-life incidents of emotional abuse from friends and acquaintances. “I remember being on a call with a friend on a Saturday night and talking about how this is an issue which has not been addressed in any of our movies. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision to make a film that focuses on this and to go ahead with an all-women crew for it,” Mathew says.

A still from 'Caged', a short film about emotional abuse.
Casting call

With no prior knowledge of filmmaking or technicalities, Mathew reached out to people on social media groups and managed to bring on board professionals in the field, purely on the strength of her subject. Three of the four actors in the film are her friends whom she knows through the Malayali association and her work as a dance teacher. The fourth, Riley Poole, who plays the role of Claire, is a trans woman.

“The LGBTQ community is usually ill-represented in all our movies. I wanted to give an opportunity to a trans woman without explicitly stating that she is one because they are already in transition and are women,” says Mathew.

'Caged' was made during the pandemic, when cases of domestic abuse started to rise.
Reality check

In Mathew’s film, one of the characters decides to take an extreme step when she feels she can’t take it anymore. Why did she decide on a bleak ending for her film?

“There are women empowerment stories where they stand up for themselves but in reality, how many women walk out of abusive marriages? It might be slightly better in India because of the family support system, but I know that things are more complicated here,” says Mathew, adding that she personally knows women who are treated as outcasts if they choose to separate from their spouses or opt for divorce.

“I didn’t want my film to be preachy. This is reality. Even if these women don’t end up taking an extreme step, the thought that they can put an end to the abuse by killing themselves does come up. I wanted that to be shoved right in front of the audience’s face. That this is what it is and there’s worse,” she adds.

The four female protagonists of 'Caged' reach to each other.
What is the problem?

Most reactions to the film have been positive, and Mathew is glad she was able to touch a chord somewhere. “A lot of women reached out to me saying ‘this is my story’. It breaks my heart to realise that so many women are going through this. I’m glad I told the story but it’s also heartbreaking at the same time,” she says.

Mathew was surprised to find that some men – especially Indian men - didn’t understand what the issue was. “But even stranger than that was to get reactions from a few women that went like ‘what is the problem’. I had to tell them that the problem is that they don’t even know that emotional abuse is a problem. It is so normalized that it is scary,” she adds.

'Caged' had an all-women crew.There’s more…

The short film has won appreciation and awards at film festivals such as the Paris Women Festival, Toronto Women Film Festival and London Indie Festival. Surely, all this must have given her the impetus to sit on the director’s chair once more?

“I am getting a lot of encouragement but the biggest encouragement came from Jeo Baby when he told me that I have the potential to make a full-length feature now,” she says.

And does she have a topic in mind?

“I do have a subject in mind. Again, it is not something that has been explored and I am eager to work on it,” she says.