MILAN.- Rubaiyat Hossain’s The Difficult Bride, one of the projects supported by the first edition of Fondazione Prada Film Fund, has been selected to compete in the Orizzonti section of the 83rd Venice International Film Festival. The film will have its world premiere on Sunday 6 September at 2.15 pm at Sala Darsena, Lido di Venezia.
One year after its first call for entries, opened in September 2025 during the Venice Film Festival, Fondazione Prada Film Fund returns to Venice with one of the projects selected in its first edition. The Difficult Bride was chosen as one of 14 projects supported by the fund out of more than 1,200 applications received from around the world. Fondazione Prada Film Fund supports independent feature films in development, production, and post-production stages, accompanying works distinguished by artistic research, originality, and strong project solidity.
Rubaiyat Hossain (Bangladesh, 1981) is a filmmaker, screenwriter, and researcher. She studied Women’s Studies at Smith College and South Asian Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, and Cinema Studies at NYU Tisch School of the Arts. Hossain has worked with several organizations dedicated to defending women’s rights in Bangladesh. Her filmography includes the feature films Meherjaan (2011), Under Construction (2015), and Made in Bangladesh (2019).
The Difficult Bride tells the story of Zaineen, a bride-to-be in contemporary Dhaka, who prepares for her dream wedding as she begins to lose control of her body. As beauty rituals, social expectations, and supernatural forces collide, her journey toward marriage transforms into an unsettling search for freedom. The film is a co-production between France, Bangladesh, Portugal, Norway, and Germany, produced by Les Films de l’Aprs-Midi, Midas Filmes, Khona Talkies, and Barentsfil, with Tandem Productions. Films Boutique is handling International Sales.
As stated by Miuccia Prada, President and Director of Fondazione Prada, “The selection at the Venice Film Festival of one of the projects supported in the first edition of the Film Fund represents an important early achievement for an initiative we believe in deeply. The experience of the first year has reinforced our conviction that it is essential to concretely support those developing projects that stand out for their originality, seriousness, and spirit of experimentation. For us, continuing to invest in contemporary film research means contributing to the vitality of a language that remains essential for interpreting the complexity of the present.”
According to Paolo Moretti, Head of Fondazione Prada Film Fund, “Just a few months after announcing our first selection, it is a great satisfaction to see one of the projects chosen by the fund at the Venice Film Festival. The Difficult Bride is the first of the 14 titles supported in the first edition to be presented at a major international festival. We are very pleased with this result and look forward to following the progress of the other projects in the months and years ahead.”
The second call for entries for Fondazione Prada Film Fund, opened in June 2026, will close on 10 September 2026 for projects in the development and post-production phases. The call for projects in the production phase closed on 6 August. Selected projects will be announced in February 2027.
