Tulane Student wins Oscar

Avery Siegel, a Tulane student majoring in communication with a minor in public health, can add the title “Oscar winner” to her resume. Siegel, a second-year student in the School of Liberal Arts, is a co-executive producer of the documentary Period. End of Sentence, which won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short on Feb. 24. The film follows girls and women in Hapur, India, telling the story of the stigma of menstruation, and their experience with the installation of a pad machine in their village. Siegel and her fellow co-producers began the project in high school in Los Angeles when they learned about the lack of access to affordable and hygienic menstrual products around the world, which leads many girls to drop out of school. “We knew we wanted to do something to raise awareness of this issue but did not know exactly what we wanted to do,” Siegel said. “We soon learned about Arunachalam Muruganantham’s low-cost sanitary pad machine that was revolutionizing the way in which menstruation was discussed in India.” Siegel said she wants to continue making documentaries when she graduates from Tulane. Period. End of Sentence is available on Netflix.

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