Due to issues relating to social mobility, financial solvency, access to peer groups—women are often disabled in terms the ‘social eligibility’ to join the film industry. Since there are no fully equipped film schools, most film learning happens through informal peer groups. Issues of safety and respectability play a big role in restricting women from joining this profession. The mostly male composition and highly sexist environment of these peer groups of films fraternity also create discouraging environment for women. This is why we felt it was necessary to create a women-only space for learning and creating. We realized that, if we want to enable our young dreamers to make films, first we must create a safe space for them where healing and disclosure is possible—a space where a woman can own upto her voice and be confident enough to tell her story. Therefore, we have divided our program into a few different phases to address the needs of the aspiring women directors.
We intend to create a community of young women and dedicated mentors and put them through an incubation period. Film direction, as a job requires leadership skills, therefore, we will provide a custom-tailored leadership workshop for our participants. Some knowledge of feminist film history, female gaze, gendered reading of film texts are also very important tools for a woman director, thus, we will arrange study circles led by academics to address this issue.
For first edition our participants were ready with their scripts, they pitched the project in front of a panel of international jury members. Three projects are awarded with grants. We provided production support and mentorship during the all stage of production. We will also ensure local and international distribution of these films.