selected recognition
- Year
- 2020
- Genre
- Coming-of-Age Drama
- Runtime
- 16 min.
- Countries
- Czech Republic, India
A promising teenage swimmer's world begins to collapse when her first period forces her to confront the expectations placed on women in her traditional Indian family.
synopsis
Kanya is a talented teenage swimmer with a promising future ahead of her. Disciplined and ambitious, she has built her identity around the freedom she experiences in the water and her dream of becoming a competitive athlete. But when she gets her first period, the world around her suddenly begins to change.
Within her traditional Indian family, menstruation marks her transition into womanhood and brings with it a new set of expectations about how she should behave, what she should wear and what kind of future she should imagine for herself. As her changing body collides with the rigid traditions surrounding her, Kanya finds herself caught between the person she wants to become and the role others have already chosen for her.
“Gender stereotypes have a significant impact on girls, especially during puberty, as this is the time when they learn what it means to be a woman through labels laid down by society – such as beauty and subservience. The onset of puberty triggers increased pressure from society to conform to hegemonic sextyped identities and roles. Youngsters become primarily aware of these gender stereotypes and roles during this age and begin to assume and accept them as “universal truths”. Consequently, girls’ struggle with self-esteem and selfconfidence twice as much as boys during puberty because society sends out a message that vigour, power and authority are for men, not women.”
credits
cast
TARUNYA SATISH, HARISH KUMAR, MONA KAKKADE, BALAJI RAJASHEKAR
tech specs
- Tamil title
- கன்யா
- English title
- Kanya
- Producers
- Lonely Production, FAMU, Apoorva Satish
- Length
- 16 minutes
- Year of production
- 2020
- Countries of production
- Czech Republic, India
- Shooting locations
- Czech Republic, India
- Languages
- Tamil
- Sales / distribution
- ShortsFit
- World premiere
- Busan International Film Festival 2020 / Wide Angle — Asian Short Film Competition