We had the pleasure to be screened at the 4th edition of Female Filmmakers Festival in Berlin on October 9th.

The annual five day film event features screenings of international short & feature films of all genres as well as a hand-picked selection of music videos, panels, networking sessions and more. – we read on Female Filmmakers Festival’s website.

Toronto International Women’s Film Festival awarded P.E.R.I.O.D. in the category “Best Music Video” in their Summer 2022 edition. The festival is sponsored by Toronto Film Magazine and Toronto Film Channel in Canada.
Women are involved in the film industry in all roles, including as film directors, actresses, cinematographers, film producers, film critics, and other film industry professions, though women have been underrepresented in creative positions. – we read on Toronto Film Magazine Website.

I‘m super excited and honored to be featured in Polish nation-wide magazine Wysokie Obcasy with the P.E.R.I.O.D. music video! Wonderful journalist Paula Szewczyk interviewed me and wrote the article, summing up the ideas behind it. Thw whole article in my translation follows:

She came up with the idea to contrast the non-glamorous sanitary napkins with the aesthetics of jewelry or sexy lingerie advertisements. Monika Kozub recorded “Period” with the slogan “period is not a luxury” in mind.

The first inspiration for the video came to Monika, a Polish woman, who had been living in Berlin for several years, when she started to use a menstrual cup and she fell in love with it.

– It’s a completely different experience than tampons and pads. Looking at this small container with fresh, red blood, I wanted to take pictures of it instantly – she tells us in an interview.

Second inspiration came when she realized that the photos used to illustrate texts about menstruation are usually showing perfectly white, clean pads that have nothing to do with reality. – A tampon covered in red glitter or a red melting popsickle are nice metaphors, but still only metaphors. I wanted to show the truth about the period in my pictures.

After all, we all know or we can pretty much guess what menstruation really looks like.

“If the blood were gold, we’d rule the world” – sing the women in the video. We also see a woman with her fingers covered in blood in the sign of victory, and then pointing to a pad she holds in the other hand asking: “You think this shit’s free?!”

There is also a bathtub full of white foam with distinct red stains, or a jar filled with jam, resembling blood, with which the rapper smears her lips and the skin around them.

– Was I worried about the accusation that the material was “tasteless”? No, because it’s visually appealing, and the text that accompanies it fits well with the video. The viewer gets hit in the face with the images related to menstruation, but it’s important to remember that only because we menstruate humanity still exists. I would like us to stop frowning at the thought of period and stop embarrassing menstruating people or saying what “can” and “should” be shown about them.

After over a year of preparations – it’s live! Watch the video and listen to the song on Spotify/Apple Music. Share with friends and family, let’s #endperiodpoverty together ♥️🩸

The whole PERIOD story started from me reading a book by Emma Barnett and how she encouraged the readers in one of the chapters to create their own menstrual hygiene products ad. I felt challenged 💪

I talked about it with my partner, Daniel S. Roden and we decided that we don’t want to make an ad, we want to make a rap song about menstruation and then a music video to it 🙌 The visuals for the video started off as a continuation of the the visuals I created for Social Period ♥️ I felt inspired to turn them into a story told in a film, not just through still images.