Sultana’s Dream

In this animated frame story, Inés, from Spain, stumbles upon a 1905 book titled Sultana’s Dream while staying in India. This book by Bengali feminist thinker Rokeya Hossain describes a utopia called Ladyland, where men must stay at home so that women can move about and develop freely. Doesn’t it make more sense to lock up the dangerous people, she wonders, rather than those whose safety they threaten?

The book forms a starting point for a magical-realist exploration of the role of women in the past and present, the dynamics between the two sexes, and the importance of dreamers and dreams. Inés concludes her journey via thinkers including Mary Beard and Paul B. Preciado, and a visit to her father in Rome, with the abandoned and neglected widows of Vrindavan.

Each part of this film by director Isabel Herguera is rendered in its own unique visual style: Inés’s journey is in ink and watercolors; shadowy figures populate Hossain's story; and Ladyland is comprised of traditional Mehndi patterns.