National award winning filmmaker Vibha Bakshi’s SON RISE sweeps the National Film Awards including  Best Film (Non-Feature Film) at the 66th National Film Awards 

Mumbai, Saturday August 10, 2019: Following the success of her previous National Award winning film, ‘Daughters of Mother India’, film director and producer Vibha Bakshi’s latest film SON RISE sweeps the National Film Awards including Best Film (Non-Feature), Best First Non-Feature Film and Best Editing at the 66th National Film Awards. A powerful gender rights film, ‘SONRISE’  focuses on ordinary men doing the extraordinary in changing the narrative on gender inequality.

Speaking on the occasion of winning the prestigious National Film Award for the second time, Ms. Vibha Bakshi said, “On behalf of the SONRISE team, we are beyond ecstatic, honoured and most thankful to the respected Jury for recognising SONRISE. We hope through SONRISE more men and women together will stand in solidarity to create a more gender-equal world society. Most grateful, this will be our second National Film Award consecutively”

SON RISE is set in Haryana, a strong Patriarchal society, with a highly skewed sex ratio due to rampant illegal sex determination and female foeticide. The sex ratio imbalance has led to unprecedented levels of gender crimes, ranging from bride trafficking to gang rapes. It is in this land of the ’Khap’ panchayat, that the filmmaker finds ‘ordinary’ men taking on the ‘extraordinary’ fight to change the narrative on gender inequality. From a forward-thinking Sarpanch, fighting for women to enter the male-dominated arena of local-politics, to a farmer who, in an arranged marriage, decides to marry a gang rape survivor and vows to support, to the end, her fight for justice.

The film is in support of UN Women as part of their #HeForShe campaign under which people of every gender stand in solidarity with women to create a bold, visible and united force for gender equality.