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Every Girl . Everywhere . Period
Oscars 2019: Period. End of Sentence -
wins despite voters calling it ‘too icky’
A documentary about periods has won an Oscar despite reports that voters were unlikely to vote for it because its subject is "too icky".
Period. End of Sentence. took home the Best Documentary Short award days after an anonymous member of the Academy Award’s 519-person directors branch wrote an extensive piece for the Hollywood Reporter explaining his reason for voting in each category.
Commenting on the best documentary short category, he said he would not vote for the short as "it’s about women getting their period, and I don’t think any man is voting for this film because it’s just icky for men.
Period. End of Sentence., which is on Netflix now, follows women in Hapur, India. They learn to make sanitary pads and educate men and other women in their community about menstruation, where the subject has been deeply stigmatised for decades.
“We learned that [menstruation is] very complex, and it’s a multi-layered issue — something that has been deeply rooted, a stigma deeply rooted, in Indian culture and society forever,” the documentary's director Rayka Zehtabchi told Refinery.
She said many women interviewed for the documentary had never heard of pads before, or felt too embarrassed to buy them. Others couldn’t explain what a period was but believed it was bad. Ms Zehtabchi added: “When so few people talk about it, and there’s very little information around what this natural phenomenon really is, it starts to build fear around it.”
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