7 September 2026
Novera, a young woman in Dhaka, is in love with her future husband and dreams of a fairytale wedding. As she undergoes beauty rituals and navigates family expectations, however, her body begins to rebel in unsettling ways. Home remedies, social pressures and supernatural visions turn the preparations for marriage into a physical and psychological struggle against what is being imposed on her. Hossain brings her feminist gaze into the realm of the supernatural, using the body and its transformations to question the expectations placed on women.
Bangladeshi director, screenwriter and producer Rubaiyat Hossain (Dhaka, 1981) brings women’s experiences and power relations in Bangladesh to the screen. She made her debut with Meherjaan (2011), a controversial portrait of the 1971 War of Independence, followed by Under Construction (2015). Made in Bangladesh (2019), presented at Toronto and awarded at the Torino Film Festival, tells the story of garment workers fighting to unionise. The Difficult Bride is her fourth feature and marks her Venice debut.
