Rubaiyat Hossain on ‘The Difficult Bride’: Exploring Beauty Standards, Feminism, and Supernatural Drama Ahead of Venice Premiere

The genesis of Rubaiyat Hossain’s supernatural feminist drama, The Difficult Bride, can be traced back to a haunting story she heard at the age of seven while visiting a beauty parlor in Dhaka with her mother.

“There was a bride who died there,” Hossain recalls. The tale, widely known among her generation, instantly captured her imagination. Even as a seven-year-old, she vividly visualized the story, somehow seeing it in sepia tones. Those striking images stayed with her, eventually becoming the foundation for the film.

Variety is presenting an exclusive clip from this supernatural feminist drama. The film is set to make history as the first Bangladeshi feature selected for the Horizons competition at the Venice Film Festival.

The Mayfair salon serves as the backdrop for the film, which follows Zaineen (played by Zaineen Chowdhury Karim), a bride-to-be whose wedding preparations descend into a surreal battle with her own body. Hossain first explored this material in a short film in 2006. After two decades and numerous drafts, the project evolved to incorporate her academic background in gender studies, alongside deeply personal experiences. “My own self and my own body became a part of the film,” she explains. “My embodied experience of being a female in my own body and how I feel is something I tried to communicate in the film. And that is why it became supernatural, because a lot of the things are not logical. That is where the grotesque comes in, that is where the lizards and the snakes come in.”

Hossain is careful not to attribute these oppressive beauty standards solely to men. Azmeri Haque Badhon portrays the salon owner who rigorously enforces these standards on Zaineen, including a scene of facial injections that Hossain notes are common in Bangladeshi salons. “It’s also about how women can be some of the biggest upholders and sustainers of patriarchy and the patriarchal system,” Hossain notes. “It’s not only men; women also participate in this. It’s a system of power. It takes both to participate in it.”

The film’s Dhaka setting subtly reflects the country’s political unrest from July 2024, featuring scenes where women are surveilled and policed based on their clothing and behavior. This theme is embodied by Rikita Nondine Shimu’s character, Minoti. However, Hossain resists framing the film as a direct response to that specific period. “I wouldn’t say the film is set around the time of July,” she clarifies. “I tried to create a reality of Dhaka where political violence exists alongside persistent violence against women. Women’s rights have long been an issue in Bangladesh.”

Hossain frames The Difficult Bride as the final piece in a thematic trilogy exploring Bangladeshi womanhood across different social classes. “Under Construction’ focused on a middle-class woman, ‘Made in Bangladesh’ on a working-class woman, and ‘The Difficult Bride’ examines the ultra-wealthy population of the tri-state area,” she explains, referencing Dhaka’s affluent Gulshan-Baridhara district. “Even in this gilded cage, even with all these privileges, you can’t be free.”

The lead role of Zaineen is played by Karim, who makes her acting debut after previously serving as Hossain’s assistant director. When the original cast departed due to the July disruptions, Karim stepped in to read lines with another actor during Zoom rehearsals. Hossain was deeply impressed, noting, “She is so beautiful and I feel like she is the character herself.” She auditioned Karim roughly 15 to 20 times. The film also stars Sunerah Kamal alongside Badhon and Shimu, all three of whom are Bangladesh National Film Award winners.

Hossain, who teaches part-time at Smith College—including a course on love and devotion in Bollywood cinema—argues that the pressures dramatized in her film transcend South Asian borders. “I see that a woman coming from Mexico, Guatemala, Bangladesh, or Vermont faces the same issues regarding this specific idea of beauty and submission,” she asserts.

Beyond her creative work, Hossain has launched a grant and mentorship program for Bangladeshi women filmmakers. The initiative aims to tackle compounding structural barriers, including limited funding, mobility restrictions, the absence of a formal film school, and an industry culture reliant on informal, male peer networks. “There is also an overall assumption and lack of role models,” she adds.

The Difficult Bride is an international co-production involving France’s Les Films de l’Après-Midi, Bangladesh’s Khona Talkies, Portugal’s Midas Filmes, Norway’s Barentsfilm, and Germany’s Tandem Production. It received support from the inaugural Fondazione Prada Film Fund, with Films Boutique handling world sales. Following its Venice premiere, the film is scheduled for screenings at the Toronto and BFI London film festivals.

For Hossain, the project represented a significant creative shift. “I’m not tied to social realism anymore,” she shares. “I really relied on my body and my instincts to make creative decisions, and I really enjoyed the process.”

She is currently developing a new project set in Lisbon, focusing on an undocumented Bangladeshi woman who migrates following a cyclone, and is also working on a television adaptation of J. Courtney Sullivan’s novel, The Cliffs.

Watch the exclusive clip here:

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