About Love: A Room of One’s Own

Three generations of the Phadke family live together in their home in Mumbai. When the youngest daughter turns the camera towards her family, the personal becomes political as power structures within the family become visible, and eventually unravel. Cruel and comic in equal measure, the film shows the vagaries of affection across generations.

This lesson offers students a chance to link and contrast Maneesha Phadke’s need to write with literary giant Virginia Woolf’s famous claim that in order to write, women need money and a room of one’s own (both of which have typically been denied by sexist cultures, laws, and customs). Teacher’s can guide students to explore as much or as little of the specific historical context for Woolf’s writing as suits curriculum needs. It will also be easy to add or skip research skills by assigning students to find information on Woolf or simply supplying the relevant background.

Faith Rogow, Ph.D., is the co-author of The Teacher’s Guide to Media Literacy: Critical Thinking in a Multimedia World (Corwin, 2012) and past president of the National Association for Media Literacy Education. She has written discussion guides and lesson plans for more than 250 independent films.