Guneet Monga and Arunachalam Muruganantham’s Period End of Sentence won at the 91st Oscars last night. Find all the winners here.

Period. End of Sentence was nominated in the Documentary Short Subject category at the Oscars 2019. The film with 30 people listed on the producer’s team feature three producers from India, Guneet Monga and Shaan Vyas and Mandakini Kakar from her company Sikhya Entertainment.

The five films nominated in the category were –
BLACK SHEEP, Ed Perkins and Jonathan Chinn
END GAME, Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman
LIFEBOAT, Skye Fitzgerald and Bryn Mooser
A NIGHT AT THE GARDEN, Marshall Curry
PERIOD. END OF SENTENCE., Rayka Zehtabchi and Melissa Berton

The 26-minute short documentary film set in Hapur Village in Uttar Pradesh, is focussed around the stigma of menstruation in rural India and overcoming it one sanitary pad at a time. When the sanitary pad machine, an invention of the now famous Pad Man Arunachalam Muruganantham is installed in the village, the women learn to manufacture and market their own pads, empowering the women of their community. To know more about the film and watch the trailer, click here.

Directed by the Iranian-American female filmmaker Rayka Zehtabchi, a recent graduate from USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, the film has been created by The Pad Project, an organisation established by students who were a chapter of the Girls Learn International at the Oakwood School in Los Angeles and their teacher Melissa Berton, also a producer on the film. 

Although the official winners for the film are Rayka Zehtabchi and Melissa Berton, it is still a proud moment for Sikhya Entertainment, the Oakwood School girls and the women of the village of Hapur. Guneet Monga took to Twitter to share her happiness.

WE WON!!! To every girl on this earth… know that you are a goddess… if heavens are listening… look MA we put @sikhya on the map ❤️

— Guneet Monga (@guneetm) February 25, 2019

“I can’t believe a film on menstruation won an Oscar,” director Zehtabchi said in her acceptance speech. She also mentioned Monga proudly. “Guneet Monga – know that you have been empowering women all over the world fight for menstrual equality,” she added.

The film premiered at the Cleveland International Film Festival in April 2018, winning the Best Documentary Award there. It has since played and won at AFI Fest, Port Townsend, Santa Fe, Savannah and Traverse City Film Festival. It is available to watch on Netflix. Find it here.
​To find out all the​ 91st Academy Award​ winners, go here.