Academy Award winning documentarian Megan Mylan's latest short film After My Garden Grows focuses on what's changing for the girls of West Bengal
This is not a film with exquisite cinematography or a storyline that will leave you in tears. It is simply the story of a village girl who sells gourds for 20 rupees and is excited about it. No special lighting, no make-up, no script—just a 10-minute glimpse into the life of 16-year-old Monika Barman, from Cooch Behar, West Bengal, who's hoping that the little money she earns from selling the produce from her rooftop garden will help her return to school and delay her marriage. Thanks to Landesa, an NGO that is working to empower girls, Monika knows that girls have just as much right to land as boys do. She also knows that she can't be forced to marry before 18.
So what drew Megan Mylan to the story aside from the Sundance Institute giving her funding—and artistic freedom to create a film that explores poverty—and the support she already has in India, courtesy Smile Pinki? "I was raised as a girl, whose parents, teachers and community told her that you can do absolutely anything in the world that you want. And that's what I want for everyone. It's an affront that any girl should be told, when they're going to finish school, become a wife or a mother," she says.
Megan's protagonists are typically "people at life-defining moments, that reveal larger issues worthy of attention". In the teenage Monika, Megan found someone facing poverty, malnutrition, poor access to education, early marriage, premature motherhood and more. According to UNICEF, by age 15, one girl out of every five in West Bengal is married; more than one quarter of girls are married to men ten or more years older and almost half of all rural girls are pregnant by age 19.
The girls in the film want to study, though we're not sure what they will do with an education, given the dearth of opportunity in most Indian villages. But Megan a die-hard optimist is looking for, "What's changing? What's working?" She believes the most significant part of the film is how Monika's garden turns her from a burden into an asset.
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