Free Screening - Burqa Boxers - New Orleans Film Festival 2017

New Orleans NOW is a community partner with the New Orleans Film Festival 2017 to bring you a free screening of Burqa Boxers, a feature length documentary about Muslim women boxers in Kolkata, India, directed by Alka Raghuram.

In a culture where beauty, delicacy, refinement and submission are the prized traits to the ultimate feminine career fulfillment, marriage, young Muslim women in Kiddirpur, Kolkata challenge stereotypes, learning boxing with Razia Shabnam, one of the first Indian women to become a boxing coach and an international referee.

Burqa Boxers tells the story of Ajmira Khatoon, Taslima Khatoon and Parveen Sajda as they train with Razia Shabnam while negotiating poverty and tradition and learn to confront the biggest obstacle in their paths, fear. Fear of society, of family, of not fitting in...as they take the first baby steps on a journey towards an idea called empowerment.