Sultana’s Dream, a funding and mentorship grant initiated by internationally acclaimed filmmaker Rubaiyat Hossain, has kicked off its film workshop on February 18.. This mentorship program for women is being held in a hybrid format due to Covid constraints.
Rubaiyat Hossain, Tasmiah Afrin Mou, Philippe Barrière, Barkat Hossain Polash, Seemab Gul, Chaitali Samaddar, Nahid Masud, Saim Sadiq, Meenakshi Shedde, Jonaki Bhattacharya, Mahde Hasan, Aadnan Imtiaz Ahmed and Syeda Iffat Hossain will be serving as instructors.
Monon Muntaka Shova, Laboni Ashrafi, Atoshi Karmaker, Fatiha Taiara, Nusrat Jahan Ishat, Farah Jalil, Farzana Noor, Neha Shamim, Fariah Manar, Risana Tahmin Rahman, Samiha Siddiqui, Farisha Afreen, Mahamuda Aktar Monisha, Pracheta Ahana Alam, Md Shihab and Jahra Najifa Nova have been selected to participate in the workshop.
Inspired by Begum Rokeya, a pioneer of women’s education in South Asia, and her 1902 novel Sultana’s Dream, the platform strives to connect women across generations through their stories. Film-maker Rubaiyat Hossain earlier talked to Dhaka Tribune Showtime about the importance of such an initiative.
"Sultana’s Dream is a platform that I have created to promote filmmaking opportunities for women and to create a gender balance in the cinematic landscape as a whole," she said. "Historically men have been making films about women, telling women’s stories, assuming a woman’s voice."
"It’s time, as women, we intervene in the process of mostly men telling our stories and deciding how we go down in history," she added.
The novel, Sultana's Dream, is a science fiction set in a world where women operate in the public space, and in order to maintain purdah, men have gone into the inner quarters. In Sultana’s dream world, subversions are possible and women can take up public space without fear or guilt. As the number of violence against women cases escalate all over Bangladesh, it is of paramount importance for women to put forward their own narratives, take up public imagination with their stories and proclaim their individuality.
The 16 participants will receive basic filmmaking training and guidance for preparing project dossiers and pitching, followed by leadership workshops, script-writing modules and study circles surrounding feminist film history, the female gaze and gendered reading of film texts till June. After the conclusion of the workshop, in July, participants will pitch their short film scripts to an international jury, who will select two projects to receive the Sultana’s Dream grant.
The platform will provide mentorship and production support for the selected projects. The short films, which are expected to be finished by the end of the year, will be distributed locally and internationally. Goethe Institut Bangladesh has joined as the distribution partner of this program.
Going forward, Sultana’s Dream aspires to arrange mentorship programs for women directors in the South Asian region where they can learn an array of skills from script writing to marketing as well as produce more films from Bangladeshi women.