FOUR WOMEN AND A ROOM 

Hybrid Doc-Fiction | 28 min | India, 2009

Writer-Director I Producer I Editor: Ambarien Alqadar
 

​Through fragmented associations of women with a labor room, Four Women and a Room moves between personal memory, documentary observation, and political critique of the complex history of abortion in India, which was legalized as a population control measure rather than through a feminist movement for reproductive rights. In a culture where women’s choices and bodies are heavily controlled by patriarchy, son preference, family pressure, and the social devaluation of daughters, reflected in census data showing a rapid decline in the number of girls compared to boys among children, the film explores what choice means when reproductive technologies can become instruments of both autonomy and violence.

 

​​Award

2009      Indian Documentary Producers Association Silver Award for Excellence

2009      Indian Panorama Selection, International Film Festival of India, Goa

              

​Screenings

2010      Mumbai International Film Festival

2009      Karachi International Film Festival, Pakistan

2009      International Documentary & Short Film Festival, Kerala

2009      Indo-Korea International Women’s Film Festival, South Korea

2009      9th International Social Communication Cinema, India

2009      Indo-Korea International Women’s Film Festival

2010      Indian Panorama, International Film Festival of India, Kolhapur           

2008      Panorama Section, International Film Festival of India, Goa

2008      Federation of Film Societies of India SIGNS

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​Television Broadcast

India National Television Broadcast 2008

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Community Engagement/Distribution

UNESCO package on gender training and sexual health distributed by The Public Service Broadcasting Trust, New Delhi

Distributed by: The Public Service Broadcasting Trust, India

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“Striking experimentation with structure and form. Rare and incisive”

Madhusree Dutta, Mumbai based Filmmaker and Curator.

 

 “The Narrowcast category had some excellent documentaries – ethnographical, anthropological, cultural, biographical, historical, investigative and developmental. One of the most outstanding among them was Four Women and a Room directed by Ambarien Alqadar that explores the complex ways in which women understand, approach and experience motherhood.”. 

Shoma A. Chatterjee, Kolkatta, India based Film Scholar and Journalist, 9th International Social Communication Cinema, India 

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Crew

Director, Editor: Ambarien Alqadar

Cinematographer: Shakeb Ahmed

Executive Producer: Public Service Broadcasting Trust, India

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