Diary of a Housewife
Romantic Drama/ Narrative Feature
Duration: 100 min (approx.) / Format: 35mm / Language: English and partly in Bengali & Hindi / Country of Production: USA, Bangladesh, India / Story and Direction: Rubaiyat Hossain / Screenplay: Bhavani Iyer and Rubaiyat Hossain / Producer: Ashique Mostafa, Rubaiyat Hossain / Production Company: Era Motion Pictures
[Currently looking for co-producers in India & USA]
ONE LINER
Having the privileges of stripping off the norms of heterosexual patriarchal notions of womanhood, what persona does the modern Bengali woman manifest?
TAG LINE
Can a woman love a man and a woman at the same time? What does a housewife really want?
BRIEF OUTLINE OF THE STORY
Roma is a free spirited independent Bengali girl who has been educated in the US. Like all other human beings she is looking for meaning and fulfillment in life. It takes her down the ally way of exploring men, drugs, love, marriage, sex, extra marital affair with her husband Rahul’s best friend Aatish—all in quest to find her subjectivity as a woman through screaming out her voice in the creative art of writing.
What is Roma’s choice? Or does she have a say in it at all? Where does Rahul and Roma’s marriage lead them to? Do Aatish and Roma find each other? How does Roma react when she finds out, after her mother’s death that, her seemingly timid Bengali housewife mother had been cheating on her father all her life?
How does Roma’s book figure, and what is her 19th century Bengali widow protagonist Bindu’s destiny? What role does Durga pujo in Kolkata play in all of this? Does Roma manage to take charge of her destiny or is it no different from Bindu in the 1920s or Roma’s mother in the 1980s ? What role does Roma’s diary play in all of this? The answers to these form the telling of the story that is ‘The Diary of A Housewife’.
DIRECTOR’S NOTE OF INTENT
Is womanhood a myth? What does a woman want? What desire is really imposed on her and what is her own desire? With all the options at her fingertips: marriage, love, sexual pleasure, career, motherhood, creativity; what does a woman opt for, why and how?
Lacan said, “she doesn’t know what she wants.” Does the modern educated conscious woman with ample options know what she really wants? Does she know what it means to be a woman?
French Feminists professed: when the “repressed” [women] of their culture and their society come back, it is an explosive return, which is absolutely shattering, straggering, overturning, with a force never let loose before.
There is a voice crying in the wilderness…the voice of a body dancing, laughing, shrieking, crying. Whoose is it? It is, they say, the voice of a woman, new born and yet archaic, a voice of milk and blood, a voice silenced but audible and savage. (Helen Cixous)
‘Diary of a Housewife’ promises to bring forth the wild and independent voice of the modern South Asian woman for the international as well as South Asian audience through the sensual visual journey into a woman’s sexuality and creativity, her love and loss, her devotion for the female God as well as her longing for her male husband and lover in the backdrop of Bengal’s biggest religious festival, worshipping of the female Goddess Durga—namely the Durga Pujo.
This project has been selected to be officially presented at the Goa Film Bazaar which is an annual film market organized by the National Film Development Corporation of India (NFDC) and is held alongside the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in Goa, India. Following edition of Film Bazaar will be held from November 24-27, 2011 where ‘diary of a housewife’ project will be showcased. For more info: http://filmbazaarindia.com
Diary of a housewife is a South Asian story with major cast & crew from India and also from USA & Bangladesh to be filmed in India and USA and partly in Bangladesh seeking co-producer, distributor & sales agent for the International partnership.
