00:00Hey guys, congratulations on your win. I'm Ronak. I'm with UCLA's newspaper, The Daily Bruin.
00:06Go Bruin. I know. I love that.
00:08I just wanted to ask you guys, of course you were in India for multiple months shooting this film.
00:13You've seen a lot that's different from here in the United States.
00:17And I wanted to ask if there was one moment, one specific moment in which you felt like it was really hard-hitting and emotional
00:25and one moment that made you realize that making the period was so worth it.
00:30I think when I was in India shooting with Sam Davis, my creative partner, we surveyed hundreds of women and men.
00:39And some of the, I think, the responses that we would hear about what menstruation is that really took us aback
00:48were when women had been menstruating their entire lives and literally couldn't tell us what a period was.
00:55They didn't know or understand why they would menstruate each month.
00:59In fact, they had gone their entire lives believing that they had an illness.
01:03And I think that was really one of the most heartbreaking things for me as a woman, and especially as a young woman as well,
01:10seeing that you can go your entire life fearing this thing that happens to your body.
01:16I can't even imagine what else you would be afraid to do.
01:20We'll come to 209 and then 19.
01:22Angela Bishop from Network 10 Australia, congratulations.
01:25What does the win for this film mean for this sensational work that's going on there,
01:33and perhaps for other areas in the world where it needs to happen?
01:35So this film started as an initiative of a group called Girls Learn International,
01:40which seeks to give high school students a voice in the global movement for equal access to education worldwide
01:47because girls have less access to education.
01:52And one of the causes is that when they begin to menstruate, they drop out of school or are targets for forced early marriage.
01:58So this actually began seven years ago with the creation of the Pad Project,
02:02which is our nonprofit organization that we use to raise awareness for this issue.
02:08And since the Oscar nomination, actually, we received over 2,500 emails from all over the world
02:16saying we'd love a pad machine in this community, that community.
02:19So now it's wonderful.
02:21Now we really have to do the work of the nonprofit.
02:25And I think that this world platform will just bring even more notoriety to that issue.
02:32We're going to 19, and then I unfortunately have to wrap it up, so I'll wrap up with one and two.
02:36Hi, ladies. Congratulations.
02:37We got to talk on the red carpet.
02:39I don't know if you remember or not.
02:40Yes, of course.
02:41ABC.
02:41Yes, ABC.
02:42Hi.
02:43The Dana Cortez show.
02:44So how hard was it when you first arrived to India to get young girls and older women
02:50who had never spoken of this, how difficult was it to get them to open up at first?
02:56And then once the floodgates were open, I'm sure that's when everything, you know, set itself into place.
03:02But was it hard at first?
03:03So Sam and I went to India twice to film.
03:06The first time that we went, it was right when the machine had actually been delivered to the village.
03:11It wasn't installed.
03:13Nobody really knew about this machine yet.
03:15So that's when we really took the opportunity to survey and understand, you know, what really is the thinking and mentality behind menstruation.
03:22So as you can imagine, it was incredibly difficult.
03:25We're going into these really rural villages where a lot of the times these people have never even seen a film crew before.
03:32And then we're asking these subjects about something that is so painfully taboo that they haven't even spoken to their own mothers about it before.
03:39So it was very challenging.
03:40We got a lot of, I think, silence and bewilderment and a lot of misinformation.
03:47But the second time we went back to India was six months after the machine had been installed.
03:52And it was absolutely remarkable to see how open and empowered these women were.
03:57They were pulling me and Sam into the pad machine room to show us how to make a pad.
04:02So it's insane to see how transformative it's been.
04:05And I just want to add to that super quickly.
04:07The students and I were able to go three months after that to meet everybody and see.
04:13And we were able to screen the film.
04:15Actually, the women in the village were the first audience to actually see the finished film, one of the first audiences.
04:21And they really felt proud of how they came across.
04:27And we've been talking to them all week because they're here.
04:30And this has made a lot of change for them.
04:33So we're very happy.
04:36We're going to wrap it up with 102 right here.
04:38Hello.
04:39Hi.
04:39I'm Jo from Shorts TV.
04:41And Shorts TV is theatrically releasing the film across India.
04:46How do you think general audiences will react to the short?
04:49So far, the response has been absolutely amazing.
04:53So I hope and I do know that India is very excited about this film and hopefully now very excited about this win.
05:01So I think that we're using this here as a vehicle, really, for change and to really allow people to start the conversation about menstruation.
05:12Thank you so much, ladies, and congratulations.
Be the first to comment