Three remarkable girls enter ninth grade at top schools, where they confront for the first time, a world very different from the one they come from.
With indomitable teenage spirit, they grapple with a culture steeped in traditions, ideas, and biases of the past.
A moving and provocative story told from the perspective of the girls themselves, their freshness and honesty pierce preconceived notions about race, class, culture, and girlhood. They challenge “belonging” to encompass a larger sense of experience and history.
Kavery Kaul is an award-winning filmmaker whose documentaries reframe who "we" are. Through an intimate lens, she crafts stories which boundlessly straddle different worlds. The founder of riverfilms, her works have been featured at DOC NYC, Telluride, London, Sydney and other major festivals; at the Museum of Modern Art (NY), the Kennedy Center (DC), National Museum of Women in the Arts (DC), Jameel Arts Centre (Dubai), and American Center (Kolkata and Delhi, India). The Alliance of Women Film Journalists called THE BENGALI "a lyrical and poetic documentary that shows how stories and presumptions can change, forging connections that are rich and real --- not just to the past, but to the world at large." The Academy Film Archive and the Women's Film Preservation Fund restored her early film ONE HAND DON'T CLAP for theatrical release. Her other credits include CUBAN CANVAS, LONG WAY FROM HOME, and FIRST LOOK, narrated by Harry Belafonte. A New Yorker born in Kolkata, India, with years spent in Paris, London, and Havana, her work has been supported by the Ford Foundation, Doris Duke Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts, She has garnered a Fulbright Fellowship, an Imagen Award nomination, and a New York City Proclamation of Excellence. In her highly acclaimed Tedx Talk, she speaks to the power of storytelling as a way to connect people across divides. As arts speaker on the occasion of Fulbright's 75th anniversary, she reminded us that "Stories Matter".
