Bangladesh’s Rubaiyat Hossain Sets Berlin Co-Production Market Project ‘Difficult Bride,’ Women Filmmaker Grant

variety.com:

Naman Ramachandran Acclaimed Bangladeshi director Rubaiyat Hossain, known for her powerful women-centric films, has a new project participating in the Berlinale Co-Production Market and is launching a female filmmaker grant.Her Berlinale co-production market project, “The Difficult Bride,” follows Novera, a bride-to-be in present-day Dhaka who is in love with the groom and the idea of a fairytale wedding, but secretly struggles with her body, which does not seem to comply with the wedding rituals.

She makes continuous trips to the beauty salon and uses home remedies to “cure” her body. As stress, anxiety and emotional pain take root in her, a mysterious woman with long hair begins to visit Novera in her imagination.

Directed and written by Hossain, Aadnan Imtiaz Ahmed produces for Khona Talkies. A third of the $876,000 budget has been raised from Bangladeshi entities and the project hopes to attract further financiers, a sales agent, technical crew heads of departments and European post-production packages while at Berlin.Meanwhile, kicking off on Feb.

18 is Sultana’s Dream, a funding and mentorship grant to empower, promote and support the next generation of women filmmakers and storytellers in Bangladesh, named after a 1902 novel by Begaum Rokeya, a pioneer of women’s education in South Asia.