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An Oscar victory is a definite reason to celebrate for the makers of “Period. End of Sentence” — an Indian-set film on menstruation — but it would be a “dream come true” if the government takes it to the grass-root level via educational programmes to schools and colleges.
“After the Oscar win, I’d love the Education Ministry to get involved and take this film from school to school, college to college and have an educational programme… That would be a dream come true, and that is when a shift or change will happen,” producer Guneet Monga told IANS in an interview from Los Angeles.
“I think we must try and make that happen… If not now, then when,” asked Monga, who also became a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences this year.
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Would she come back and speak to officials?
“Yeah, I’d love to… I will have to navigate that,” Monga said.
The film’s Oscar win has already caught the attention of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, who has acknowledged its effort to spotlight Hapur’s ‘pad women’, who have gradually learnt to break the stereotype about menstruation. Union Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi is glad the film talks about how a “period should end a sentence, not a girl’s education”.
In the opening scenes of the 26-minute Netflix film, which won the Best Documentary Short at the 91st Academy Awards in Los Angeles on Sunday, young girls giggle away, and older ones aver “sharam aati hai (it’s embarrassing)” at the mention of “period”. The scenes show just the grassroot issue around menstrual health that its makers — and several others — hope to weed out from the society.
Another attempt to make the discussion around menstrual health mainstream was Akshay Kumar’s “PadMan“, inspired by the life of India’s real life ‘PadMan‘ Arunachalam Muraganathan, who also features in “Period…”
Akshay, his wife Twinkle Khanna as well as a stream of celebrities including Priyanka Chopra have come out in support of the film’s Oscar win.