(Image source from: digitaloceanspaces.com)

The producer of Oscar-winning India-based short film Period. End of Sentence., revolving around menstruation, feels it would be a "dream come true" moment if the government takes it to the grass-root level via educational programs to schools and colleges.

"After the Oscar win, I'd love the Education Ministry to get involved and take this film from school to school, college to college and have an educational programme. That would be a dream come true and that is when a shift or change will happen," producer Guneet Monga told IANS from Los Angeles.

"I think we must try and make that happen. If not now, then when," asked Monga, who also became a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences this year.

Would she come back and speak to officials? "Yeah, I'd love to... I will have to navigate that," she said.

Union Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi is glad that the documentary talks about how a "period should end a sentence, not a girl's education".

In the beginning scenes of the 26-minute Netflix film, which won the Best Documentary Short at the 91st Academy Awards in Los Angeles on Sunday, young girls giggle away, and older ones say "Sharam aati hai (it's embarrassing)" at the mention of "period". The scenes show merely the grass-root issue around menstrual health that its makers, and several others, hope to get rid of from the society.

Directed by award-winning Iranian-American movie maker Rayka Zehtabchi, the documentary is created by The Pad Project, an organization set up by an inspired group of pupils at the Oakwood School in Los Angeles and their teacher, Melissa Berton, with help from Gauri Chaudhary from Action India. The documentary follows girls and women in Hapur and their experience with the installation of a pad machine in their small town.

-Sowmya Sangam