Oscar winner’s film on Indian girl screened at Kolkata fest

Oscar winner Megan Mylan’s  documentary “After My Garden Grows”, which tells the story of a teenager in rural West Bengal growing food on a tiny rooftop garden to feed her family and as a means to delay her marriage, was screened at the 20th Kolkata International Film Festival to a packed audience.
The American docu-mentary filmmaker clinched the Academy Award for Best Documen-tary (Short Subject) for “Smile Pinki”, which relea-sed in 2008. It is based on a five-year-old girl from Vara-nasi with severe cleft lip.
Her current venture, the 10-minute short “After My Garden Grows”, was show-cased at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival. Bollywood actor Aamir Khan hosted a special showing in Mumbai Friday.
Revolving around 16-year-old Monika Barman, a resident of Bhutkura village in Bengal’s Cooch Behar district, it shows how minor girls are turning to farming on small plots of land in the district for their indepen-dence and empowerment.
Monika is one of the 40,000 girls participating in a programme to empower adolescent girls through the micro-agricultural programme for adolescents launched by the state government in 2011 as part of the central government’s Sabla scheme.
Monika and her sister Kanika were also present at the premiere Sunday.(IANS)