3 women filmmakers receive Sultana’s Dream fund

Three women filmmakers will be making films which will be produced by a funding from Sultana’s Dream, a funding and mentorship grant initiated by internationally acclaimed filmmaker Rubaiyat Hossain. The filmmakers who are getting the grant are Fatiha Sporsha, Mahamuda Aktar Monisha and Monon Muntaka.

Sultana’s Dream started its journey on February 22 by creating a training and funding project for young women filmmakers titled ‘Breaking the Silence’.

Under the project, 16 young women filmmakers received training in two parts. In the first part Filmmaker, Philippe Barrière, Bangladeshi filmmaker, Tasmiah Afrin Mou, Mahde Hasan, Chaitali Samaddar, Aadnan Imtiaz Ahmed, Barkat Hossain Polash, Nahid Masud, Syeda Iffat Hossain, Indian producer and production director Jonaki Bhattacharya, Indian film curator Meenakshi Shedde, Pakistani actress-director Seemab Gul and Pakistani director Saim Sadiq were served as mentors.

In the second part of the workshop, documentary filmmaker Elizabeth D. Costa, Researcher and professor of New York University Dina Siddiqi, Film critic and journalist Bedatri Datta Choudhury, and theatre director Ritu Sattar served as mentors.

After six months of training, a board selected the screenplay pitched by the chosen 16. The selection committee members were the director of Goethe Institut Bangladesh Dr Kirsten Hackenbroch, Film critic and journalist Sadia Khalid Reeti, French film producer Dominique Welinski, and the head of the Asia Foundation’s Women Empowerment and Gender Equality Promotion Division, Jane Sloane.

The German cultural institution Goethe Institut Bangladesh also joined as the distribution partner of this programme.