The documentary feature is set in Hapur village outside Delhi, where women lead a quiet revolution as they fight against the deeply rooted stigma of menstruation
A film on menstruation, set in rural India, titled ‘Period. End of Sentence’, has won the Oscar in the Documentary Short Subject category at the 91st Academy Awards.
Award-winning filmmaker Rayka Zehtabchi directed the short film, which was co-produced by Indian producer Guneet Monga’s Sikhya Entertainment.
The film came to into being as a part of ‘The Pad Project’, started by students at the Oakwood School in Los Angeles and their teacher, Melissa Berton.
Dedicating the award to her school, Berton said the project was born because her students in LA and people in India wanted to make a human rights difference . I share this award with the Feminist Majority Foundation, the entire team and cast. I share this with the teachers and students around the worlds - a period should end a sentence, not a girl’s education, she said.
Menstrual equality
I’m not crying because I’m on my period or anything. I can’t believe a film on menstruation won an Oscar, Zehtabchi said in her acceptance speech. She also gave a nod to Guneet Monga, who added: know that you have been empowering women all over the world fight for menstrual equality.
Guneet Monga has executive produced and her production firm Sikhya has co-produced the short. Here’s her reaction statement as follows:
“Thank you to the Academy for the highest honour and for recognising the efforts of the young girls from Oakwood school in LA to Kathikera in UP in helping us shatter the glass ceiling. Periods are normal and in no way do they stops us from achieving anything. This has been more than 10 years of work of Action India run by Gauri Chaudhary on educating reproductive rights on the ground in many villages. Feminist Majority Movement and Girls learn International have been pushing this cause in US.
Every girl in India or anywhere around the world needs to know this and hear this loud and clear. Period is an end of a sentence but not a girl’s eduction.
I am honoured and absolutely humbled to partner with Melissa and Rayka in making our short documentary happen. Mandakini Kakar from Sikhya was on the floor working with the film and is the voice of the film too. And thank you Stacey Sher and Lisa Taback for supporting this massive dream. And thank you NETFLIX truly putting us on the MAP !
Here is to more girl power... I really want every girl to know that each one of them is a goddess.
Now, that we have an oscar, Let’s go change the world.”
Deeply rooted stigma
The documentary feature is set in Hapur village outside Delhi, where women lead a quiet revolution as they fight against the deeply rooted stigma of menstruation. For generations, these women did not have access to sanitary pads, which lead to health issues and girls dropping out from schools. When a sanitary pad vending machine is installed in the village, the women learn to manufacture and market their own pads, empowering their community. They name their brand FLY .
Other documentary shorts nominated in the category were “Black Sheep”, “End Game”, “Lifeboat” and “A Night at the Garden”.
There has been an increased focus on period hygiene in India, which was also the subject of a mainstream Bollywood movie Padman , starring Akshay Kumar in the lead role in a biopic on Arunachalam Muruganantham, who started making low cost pads in his village despite being ostracised.
India’s moment at the Oscars comes exactly a decade after A R Rahman and sound engineer Resul Pookutty won the Academy awards for “Slumdog Millionaire” in 2009.
(With inputs from Namrata Joshi)
ಕಾಮೆಂಟ್ಗಳಿಲ್ಲ:
ಕಾಮೆಂಟ್ ಪೋಸ್ಟ್ ಮಾಡಿ