EL SUEÑO DE LA SULTANA
Spain, Germany, India

Nominated for European Animated Feature Film 2024, European Film 2024

Inés, a Spanish artist, lives in India and stumbles upon SULTANA’S DREAM, a science fiction story written by Rokeya Hossain in 1905. It describes ‘Ladyland’, a utopia in which women rule the country while men live in seclusion and are responsible for household chores. Fascinated by the story, Inés embarks on a journey across the country to search for the one place where women can live in peace.

Directed by: Isabel Herguera
Written by: Isabel Herguera, Gianmacro Serra
Produced by: Chelo Loureiro, Diego Herguera, Fabian Driehorst, Mariano Baratech, Iván Miñambres
Editing: Gianmarco Serra
Original Score: Gianmarco Serra
Sound: Gianmarco Serra, Simon Bastian
Animation: Isabel Herguera, Izibene Oñederra Aramendi, Ana María Sabater Araújo, Paula Valiño Rivera, Sergio Pereira del Castillo

Statement of the director:
Since 2005 I have been traveling regularly to India, where I already produced several animated short films (HE WHO CHEATS DOESN’T WIN (2005), ÁMÁR (2010), UNDER THE PILLOW (2012), KUTXA BELTZA (2016), THE ILLUSTRATED WOMAN (2023)), and run animation workshops. SULTANA’S DREAM shares a conceptual framework with these works: The working practice, professional contacts and personal relationships I have developed and maintained during my time in India from the starting point of the production of the film.
SULTANA’S DREAM is a story that I, like our protagonist in the film, accidentally came across while sheltering from the rain in a bookstore in India. The stunning illustration on the cover of the book caught my eye immediately: Two women piloting some sort of retro futuristic helicopter.
On the back of the book I read: “In 1905, Rokeya Hossain, a woman growing up in a traditional environment with no access to formal education, dreamed of ‘Ladyland’, a feminist utopia.” I knew right then and there that this was the next film I would move heaven and earth for.
Thanks to crowdfunding in 2012, we were able to raise enough funds to conduct a series of workshops on the book in India on-site. Later, thanks to a screenwriting grant from the Basque government, we were able to write a first draft of the screenplay for the animated feature film. It was a screenplay in which Rokeya Hossain's original utopian story was already intertwined with my own experiences. I, like Inés, the film's protagonist, travelled across India in search of the footsteps of Rokeya Hossein and ‘Ladyland’. This pilgrimage in search of Rokeya and her land of women is the emotional structure on which we built the film. This gave me the opportunity to delve deeper into the question of the situation of women in India and thus also in the West. The more the film took shape, the more the themes that have remained in the background come to the fore. The theme of security, the key concept around which Rokeya Hossain developed ‘Ladyland’, was becoming ever more present and universal.
For me personally, it was a journey that above all shaped my consciousness as a woman. I hope this film will serve to convey the urgency of making the space we share an equal and safe place for women.

Production:
Sultana Films SL
www.sultanafilms.es

World Sales:
Square Eyes
www.squareeyesfilm.com