Oscar for period film a blow for menstrual hygiene

It was in 2016 that Coimbatore first established an Oscar connection when Cottalango Leon,

born and brought up in the cotton city

, bagged an Oscar for `Scientific and technical achievement.’ This year the connection has been established again with a documentary based on the work of Coimbatore based social entrepreneur Arunachalam Muruganantham winning an Oscar.

The film titled ‘Period. End of Sentence.’ directed by Rayka Zehtabchi and produced by Guneet Monga won the Best Documentary Short subject at the 91st Academy Awards. The 26-minute film based in

Hapur

, a small village in Uttar Pradesh, is about women in the country fighting the many taboos and stigma regarding menstruation. It follows Arunachalam Muruganantham first entering the village, interacting with the girls and installing a sanitary pad vending machine, and training a woman to use the machine secretly.

Muruganantham, who already shot to fame with his biopic Padman that featured Akshay Kumar, wanted to offer something new when this film’s team approached him. “Padman was about my early life and struggles, including my wife calling me a psycho and leaving me. Since it was a commercial film it also could delve deep into the extent of stigma that exists,” said Muruganantham. “So, I suggested they make a film purely on how this machine transforms lives of women and girls in an extremely backward village in the country. I had already planned to install a machine in Hapur, and suggested they follow me. I said the plan could fail too, but they agreed,” he added.

Muruganantham revealed that many shots of women being trained and even interacted with, were shot with a hidden camera. “This film showcases the real India,” he said.

Period. End of Sentence. was nominated along with Black Sheep, End Game, Lifeboat and A Night At The Garden. “Honestly, this film won because of the female members of the jury. The taboo regarding menstruation exists across the world, even among the educated,” said Muruganantham.

More than excited, the social entrepreneur said he was grateful that people wanted to make films about his movement and the issue. “The films, and the awards they bag, garner national and international awareness to a massive extent. The number of people they reach out to in a couple of weeks or months, on my own I would take 20 years. And in India, people prefer seeing to reading. So, I consider these films as awareness creation tools,” he added.