Velvet Revolution

Velvet Revolution is a feature length documentary that sheds light on the struggles of female journalists around the world that work to speak truth to power. The film is a unique collaboration between four female Directors from India, Cameroon, the Philippines, and Canada that is supported by the International Association of Women in Radio and Television. I was honoured to have been selected as a Director, and it was a greater honour still to tell the story of Bonya Ahmed, a Bangladeshi-American author and editor of the blog Muktomona, a platform for secular thought and activism for the Bangla speaking community. After the murder of her husband, well known author Avijit Roy, by religious extremists linked to Al Qaeda, Bonya refuses to be silenced and continues to campaign for free speech and religious tolerance.

Bonya’s story concludes the 57 minute film, which is currently screening at festivals in India and the USA. The film will be available freely online once it has completed it’s festival circuit.

For this production I operated as a one woman team and ran camera, sound, directed, and later edited. It was a huge learning experience both as a filmmaker and as a human being, and I remain humbled by Bonya, and the rest of our protagonists’, resilience and bravery. In the words of Bonya, when I asked her how she continues to fight for justice against such adversity:

“I could not leave my co-warriors in the middle of the battlefield”