Producer Guneet Monga was glad that she got a ticket to the Oscars with her film Period. End of Sentence and wasn't fretting over the final show. She needn't have - because the film, set in India and dealing with menstruation taboo, took home the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short. Period. End of Sentence, featuring the real Pad Man Arunachalam Murgunantham, beat Black Sheep, End Game, Lifeboat and A Night At The Garden. "We won! To every girl on earth, know that you are a goddess," Ms Monga tweeted after accepting the Oscar. See her tweet here:
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
- Guneet Monga (@guneetm) February 25, 2019
She also thanked the Academy for honouring the team with the award and said, "Thank you to the Academy for the highest honour and for recognising the efforts of the young girls from Oakwood School in Los Angeles to Kathikera in Uttar Pradesh in helping us shatter the glass ceiling,"Guneet Monga said in a statement, news agency IANS reports.
"Periods are normal and in no way do they stop us from achieving anything. 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 education. Now, that we have an Oscar, let's go change the world," she added.
Ahead of the Oscars, Guneet Monga wrote on her Instagram that the film 'was already a winner,' detailing how Period. End Of Sentence began "with a small dream in the English department room of @melissa_berton with her school girls of @oakwoodstories for empowering and educating other young girls across the world for better menstruation hygiene. This started 7 years ago with raising money and donating one pad machine... then thought the team should make a movie for better awareness!! @actionindia76 from India helped on ground in putting a machine." Read her post here.
Period. End of Sentence is about women in India fighting against the deeply rooted stigma of menstruation and delving upon the work of real life Pad Man Arunachalam Muruganantham. It is executive-produced by Guneet Monga and is co-produced by Ms Monga's Sikhya Entertainment, which has backed films like The Lunchbox and Masaan. Mr Muruganantham inspired the Bollywood film PadMan last year.
Directed by award-winning Iranian-American filmmaker Rayka Zehtabchi, the film has been created by The Pad Project, an organisation established by an inspired group of students at the Oakwood School in Los Angeles and their teacher, Melissa Berton. The 26-minute film follows girls and women in Hapur, Uttar Pradesh and their experience with the installation of a pad machine in their village.
The Oscars were held in Los Angeles Sunday night - Monday morning for India. Oscar-winner A R Rahman also attended the ceremony.
