Meeting with Guneet Monga, the Indian producer whose menstruation film has just won an Oscar

MUMBAI, Maharashtra – This award was long overdue for Guneet Monga.

A few minutes after the Academy announced the award of an Oscar for the period by Rayka Zehtabchi. End of the sentence for the best documentary (short film), the Indian report on Twitter provoked jokes about Versova and finally awarded the most coveted prize to the cinema.

Versova, an animated pocket of West Mumbai, is home to several boutique casting companies, and is synonymous with the Bollywood quintessential bustle.

Located just off the coast, Versova, a small suburb that commands high rents and higher hopes, embodies the Mumbai film industry.

On the Sea- Luxury towers populated by actors and filmmakers who have experienced some success. On the other side are pocket cottages and galas, lounges and offices, gyms and gourmet cafes, yoga studios and yogurt shops.

These are spaces where dreamy young dreams spend countless hours auditioning roles, editing scenarios, sipping coffee at Leaping Windows, a trendy café on the street, hoping that important people notice them and life changes. They will finally graduate from Versova to Juhu, Khar or Bandra, addresses that will validate your celebrity in a city obsessed with perceptions.

Adjoining the popular Cat Cafe Studio, an intimate space known for hosting open mics for budding and experienced comedians, is the barely perceptible small office of Sikhya Entertainment, the company founded by Guneet Monga, 34 years old.

producer, Monga faced many challenges, ranging from not being taken seriously in an industry that works primarily as a family business with a dismissal termed "lucky break".

However, Monga has always challenged prejudices and opponents, from Cannes to Zurich, Amsterdam to Toronto, all the while, working from the tiny space rented to Versova. In March 2018, the US publication Commerce Variety named her one of the 50 women of entertainment doing "extraordinary things on the world stage".

But that was not an immediate success. Behind the gold trophy, there are countless days of struggle, loss of family, violence and many hours spent on various jobs such as scanning and photocopying documents in a production company.

So when Period. End of Sentence, a film produced by Monga, winning the Oscar, she cheered the loudest, to the point of apologizing to AR Rahman, who stood in front of her . The documentary team, which discusses how India's stigma affects women's menstrual and academic health, decided that only the director, the teacher at Oakwood High School in Los Angeles, students who had raised funds for the documentary, would go on stage. Zehtabchi, the director, shouted at Monga saying, "I can not believe that a movie about menstruation comes from winning an Oscar."

What did he have in mind when this victory was announced? "He's still not touched, it's surreal, we won an Oscar?" She said, after a phone call from LA. "It's all thanks to the girls, from Los Angeles to Hapur, at the NGO Action India and the voice of the film, Mandakini Kakar. "

High school girls from the Oakwood School in Los Angeles, who raised money for the film through the Yogathons and Bake Sales, hosting Sneha, Suman, Sulekha and Ajeya, three of whom are from Hapur district in UP, also appear in the film and tell how the lack of sanitary napkins prompted several girls in the village to leave the village. It was the first time women sat on a plane and yesterday they even visited Universal Studios in Los Angeles and found themselves with star-studded eyes.

One who was not on a plane taking a 31 hour flight to Los Angeles, the trip was "It's pretty difficult," says Monga. "Sneha used to say that she wanted to be a cop to make her father proud. Yesterday, she said that after announcing to her father what had been announced at the Oscars, she already felt that he had made him a proud dad.

Although the road to success was tumultuous, the result was worth it. Monga, who has festival trotting films such as Gangs of Wbadeypur Masaan The Lunchbox Monsoon Shootout to his credit, believes that despite the victory at the Oscars, the crush is far to be finished.

"At the basic level, things are always the same. I always fly in the economy, my office is small and rented, I'm still waiting for my other films to be lit green, and there are still people who think it's a chance by chance for me, that I'm a stroke of luck, "she says." I hope that I will be able to buy the cottage in which we are working someday! "

The contemptuous attitude of some people around him reached its climax in June 2018, when she became a voting member of the Academy. "They said I'm here to check a box, that of diversity, that of women, that of inclusivity. The Lunchbox succeeds as a truly transversal project, they said it was lucky.When our film Masaan went to Cannes, they always said the same thing ", she said, "But I'm not bothered, I work very hard, my work is to be seen. Indian movies on the map are not random, it takes a lot of hard work.

Monga is hoping that the Oscar win will facilitate fundraising for the production of movies telling stories worthy of Interest "Will Eros International release Peddlers now?" She pleads.

Vasan Bala Peddlers One of Monga's first productions on the narcotics trade in Mumbai, played at the International Critics Week, a parallel section of the Cannes Film Festival, in 2012 but Eros, the Indian distributor, has been sitting on it for years without publishing it.

"What will it take for them to release the film?", Questions it.

Monga is not new in blocking his films. [19659003] To raise money for Peddlers she put the script online to generate buzz for [AnouragKashyap This girl with yellow boots at the Venice Film Festival, she ran, plastering the walls at the festival venue with movie posters. Monsoon Shootout, another of his co-productions, starring Nawazuddin Siddiqui, has toured in several festivals, notably in Cannes, but has been struggling for years to get a respectable output in India The director Danis Tanovic Tigers who told the story of an alarm launcher at Nestle, almost completely derailed thanks to the enormous muscle power of the conglomerate.

By the past, Monga explained how age and bad the av mistreated in an area where power structures relied heavily on men.

"I think that a generation of boys grew up with the feeling of being entitled to their privileges. They are not ready for an independent Indian woman. They saw women serving and responding to their needs. Suddenly, when they grow up and meet women who do not do that, they do not know how to handle it, "she said in the book, Changemakers: Twenty Women Turning Bollywood Backstage.

However, today, she is hopeful.

"All I would say to another young woman who starts to be a producer, is to show up every day and continue to work. Keep believing. There were two years in my life where I was lost and depressed and I did not know what to do. But I never gave up the stories I wanted to tell. What else is there to do? "

Monga refers to the time when the production company of Anurag Kashyap, Anurag Kashyap Films Pvt. Ltd, closed workshop.

Monga was the CEO and was suddenly left without direction, despite such films as Wbadeypur and Shaitan

Although Kashyap encouraged her to find one she felt betrayed.

"I took it personally," she says.

"He told me to create my own company. Take out movies by myself. I could not because I did not believe in myself. But today, I have the impression that he has believed me more than me. To do all this, it took 2 years of depression and 2 years of work, "she says.

"I cried, screamed, I rebelled and I nearly gave up. "

Has their relationship taken a new turn today?

" He tweeted for me after our victory, "she says.

Up to present @NetflixFilm has won three .. "Period" is being streamed on @NetflixIndia Congratulations @guneetm for the victory

– Anurag Kashyap (@ anuragkashyap72) 25 February 2019

and?

"I responded by thanking him, I only have gratitude and love for him. I said, it's my engineering mentor. "

And what is the thing she looks forward to after arriving in Mumbai next week?

"To bring the Oscar to Versova."