Asis Sethi's A Bloody Mess wins big at International Filmmaker Festival of New York

Asis Sethi's short film A Bloody Mess has won the 'Excellence in Filmmaking' award at the International Filmmaker Festival of New York. The film, which stars Maria Crystal Melo, Annie Koshy and Devanshu Narang, aims to normalise conversations surrounding menstruation. The story highlights a teenager’s angst when “she is constantly bombarded with traditional practices disabling her from voicing a plain and simple fact – that she is on her period.”

Earlier, A Bloody Mess had won the prestigious REMI Award at the 53rd WorldFest - Houston International Film Festival.

In the film, Maria Crystal Melo plays Varsha, a young South Asian girl who battles against her family’s traditional beliefs surrounding menstruation, which come with rules prohibiting her from having an open dialogue with her father about her period. Since she was a child, Varsha has been told that while periods are normal, there are certain things she cannot do while menstruating, engaging her in an internal struggle as she tries to strike a balance between respecting her family and her own individual autonomy.

Asis has previously helmed independent projects like The Colourful Crown, a documentary on the effects of 9/11 on turban wearers in Canada. Her 16-episode docu-series, Darshan Dekh Jeevan, has also aired nationally on OMNI Television for five years. The South Asian-Canadian filmmaker is in the midst of finalising the editing of another short film. She is also developing two projects, including a short focusing on the post-partum journey of a new mother.