Period End of Sentence: An Indian based film bagged an Oscar for Best Documentary Short: Period. End of Sentence, a film about difficulties and humiliation faced by Indian woman at the time of menstruation in the northern part of the country, won an Oscar in the category of Best Documentary Short at the 91st Academy Awards ceremony.
HIGHLIGHTS
- Period. End Of Sentence won the Best Documentary Short at Oscars 2019.
- The India-based documentary talks about the stigma around menstruation.
- Producer Guneet Monga got a shoutout from director Rakya Zehtabchi for empowering women all over the world to fight for menstrual equality.
Oscars 2019: India-based film ‘Period. End of Sentence’ wins Documentary Short Subject
The 26-minutes movie tells about the real life story of Padman Arunachalam Muruganathan and the fight of women dealing with menstrual bars or restrictions and stigma in India.
The documentary is directed by Iranian-American filmmaker Rayka Zehtabchi and the movie revolves around the story of girls in Hapur in Uttar Pradesh who have no access to sanitary pads in their village and how it affects their health. The story also tells their struggle of putting in or installing a sanitary pads machine in their village.
The movie has been created by The Pad Project, a group of students at the Oakwood School in Los Angeles and their teacher, Melissa Berton. Mellisa Burton committed her Oscar to her students and said, “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.”
Director Rayka Zehtabchi said, “I can’t believe a film about menstruation just won an Oscar!”
Period. End of Sentence was co-produced by Indian producer Guneet Monga’s Sikhya Entertainment. Zehtabchi in her acceptance speech she also spoke about Guneet and she said, “Guneet Monga – know that you have been empowering women all over the world to fight for menstrual equality”.
In the previous time, Guneet Monga’s Sikhya Entertainment has also backed the remarkable movies like The Lunchbox and Masan.
Guneet Monga shared her happiness through the medium of twitter and tweeted “We won! To every girl on this earth… know that you are a goddess… if heavens are listening… look MA we put @sikhya on the map.”
While accepting the award, the filmmaker also said, “I’m not crying because I’m on my period or anything. I can’t believe a film on menstruation won an Oscar.”
The win came as a surprise for the reason that the stories were doing the rounds that several were not strong to vote for the film.
Anonymously a male jury member told The Hollywood Reporter that he was not voting for Period. End of Sentence. The reason he explained for this by stating, “It’s well done, but it’s about women getting their period, and I don’t think any man is voting for this film because it’s just icky for men”.
