Women in Leadership Forum
Read More about Burqa Boxers
Burqa Boxers
Feature documentary, 84 minutes, 2016
Writer/Director: Alka Raghuram
Producers: Junoon Pictures, 24 Images (France), Mu Films and supported by ITVS
Diversity Development Fund.
Awards: Best project, Grant Open Doors, Locarno Film Festival; Director Of The Year,
IDF Forum
Synopsis:
In a culture where beauty, delicacy, refinement, and submission are the prized traits to the ultimate feminine career fulfillment, marriage, young Muslim women, Parveen Sajda, Ajmira Khatoon, and Taslima Khatoon, challenge stereotypes, learning boxing with Razia Shabnam one of the first Indian women to become a boxing coach and an international referee. Burqa Boxers tells their story as they negotiate poverty and tradition while learning to face the biggest obstacle in their paths, fear; fear of the world, of the family, of not fitting in…and fight for an idea called empowerment. It is a portrait of that first baby step as they stumble and fall, and learn to pick themselves again. By telling this story Raghuram hopes to add nuance to the stereotypes about Muslim women as well as men and highlight the progressive voices within the community.
Writer/Director: Alka Raghuram
Producers: Junoon Pictures, 24 Images (France), Mu Films and supported by ITVS
Diversity Development Fund.
Awards: Best project, Grant Open Doors, Locarno Film Festival; Director Of The Year,
IDF Forum
Synopsis:
In a culture where beauty, delicacy, refinement, and submission are the prized traits to the ultimate feminine career fulfillment, marriage, young Muslim women, Parveen Sajda, Ajmira Khatoon, and Taslima Khatoon, challenge stereotypes, learning boxing with Razia Shabnam one of the first Indian women to become a boxing coach and an international referee. Burqa Boxers tells their story as they negotiate poverty and tradition while learning to face the biggest obstacle in their paths, fear; fear of the world, of the family, of not fitting in…and fight for an idea called empowerment. It is a portrait of that first baby step as they stumble and fall, and learn to pick themselves again. By telling this story Raghuram hopes to add nuance to the stereotypes about Muslim women as well as men and highlight the progressive voices within the community.
Read More about Writer and Director Alka Raghuram
Writer and Director Alka Raghuram
is an award-winning filmmaker and multimedia artist. She was awarded the L’Oreal Woman of Worth Filmmaker Award for her script The Conqueror at Tribeca All Access, and Director of The Year at the IDF Forum, Westlake International Documentary Festival for her feature documentary, Burqa Boxers, about Muslim women boxers in Kolkata. Burqa Boxers also won the top prize, Grant Open Doors, at the Locarno Film Festival co-production market. Her multimedia collaborations with dance maestros Pandit Chitresh Das and Antonio Hidalgo Paz, and recently with choreographer Charlotte Moraga for “Invoking The River” were funded by the Creative Work Fund. Alka is currently developing a fiction feature In The Ring, which was short-listed at the Sundance Screenwriters Lab, and Naksha Paani (Map Of Water), a documentary about the Vrishbhavati, an urban river in Bengaluru India.
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