A talented young woman from Renfrewshire is creating a short film about the stigma around periods.
Eve Grant studies International Relations at the University of Glasgow is creating the film to break down the negative beliefs around periods.
The comedy-drama film tells the story of a teenage girl and her father going to a shop to buy sanitary products.
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Eve, 21, is from Brookfield and is going into her final year at university. She said: “I only really got into writing last year and wrote this short film in a day.
"It was kind of initially part of another film that I had been writing and then reading it back and talking to folks about it, the bit about shopping for sanitary products is the bit that most people resonated with.
“It is really exciting being a young woman in Scotland at the moment with the Period Products (Free Provision) that passed at the end of 2020 which enabled folks, regardless of social economical background, access to free sanitary products.
“We are the first country in the world to make them free and women in Scotland are really excited and I do think that has changed our confidence in talking about it.
“It is such a taboo topic, talking about periods, and having this major public shift has been great in terms of bringing attention to the topic and enabling conversations about it.”
Eve has felt that when it comes to discussing menstruation, it is something that is really private and really only for women to hear and talk about amongst themselves.
For a great deal to many people, the stigma around menstruation has created a sense of shame and embarrassment.
Too often when it is eventually spoken about, periods are seen as disgusting and uncomfortable.
Eve explains: “We don’t think that should be the case as we really need to involve men, periods and period education.
"The film follows a father and a daughter buying period products together and that is something that I have personally never seen on screen before.
“That should not be something that is not normal because for a lot of young women, their first contact will be their dad in that situation and we are featuring a father and daughter having an open conversation about periods. From period products to symptoms of periods and how it makes this young girl feel.
“We are trying to normalise conversations about this.”
The shooting of the film will take place in September and they will be filming in a Tesco store as their location where the whole scene takes place.
Eve’s hoping to put the film in the International Film circuit as there is hope that this will go further and be a topic that many people can relate to and perhaps beyond that too.
Eve added: “What has been really important to me and something I really emphasise since I started writing it is I don’t want it just to be limited to the festival circuit. I have big ambitions for it to be an educational tool.
“I want it to be shown in schools, groups and higher education institutions because we want this film to be seen by as many people as possible.”
Eve has a funding page to meet the budget of the film and have so far have raised over £1,000.
The funding helps go towards food and drinks for the cast and crew, location and equipment hire, costume and props as well as Film Festival submission costs.
This funding page is set to close in just over a week's time. If you would like to donate money for the film, visit www.indiegogo.com/projects/heavy-short-film#/updates/all .
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