India makes an official entry into the Oscars with Period: End of Sentence, a film on the stigma of menstruation in the country, as women fight the stigma. The film also delves deeper into the work done by social entrepreneur Arunachalam Muruganatham, who is the real-life Pad Man from the Akshay Kumar film.
The film, directed by award-winning Iranian-American filmmaker Rayka Zehtabchi appears in the list for Documentary Short Subject for the 91st Academy Awards. Unfortunately, Village Rockstars, India’s entry for Foreign Language Film Category wasn’t selected in the list. The film has been produced by Guneet Monga’s Sikhya Entertainment, which has also produced films like The Lunchbox and Masaan. The 26-minute film is about young girls and women from Hapur in Uttar Pradesh, and their experience with a pad machine installed in their village.
Interestingly, the film also pays tribute to Arunachalam, who is responsible for making a low-cost machine supplying pads which are readily available in India. The film is one of 10 films, which has been selected from 104 films which originally qualified for the category.