These women had stormed a male bastion by choosing to take up autorickshaw driving as a profession. Now these trailblazers would have their lives depicted on the silver screen.

Women on Wheels — a documentary directed by city youth Amitesh Prasoon has been selected for screening at the 10th Aljazeera International Documentary Film Festival at the Doha Film Institute. The film is based on the life of three women autorickshaw drivers from Patna — Shobha, Kanchan and Gudiya.

The three-day film festival would start from October 23. The 25-minute documentary would be screened in the premiere show under the New Horizon category. “The basic theme of the documentary are the challenges and problems faced by women autorickshaw drivers,” said Amitesh.

Sharing reasons for making a film on women auto drivers of Patna, the 28-year-old film-maker said: “What really motivated me to make this documentary was the struggle for survival among more than 35,000 drivers. Now, society has started accepting women autorickshaw drivers.” Of 27,000 autos in Patna, women drive eight.

For the women protagonists, though, it was a different challenge. Facing a camera for the first time, the trio took quite some time to overcome their inhibitions. “We were really nervous as we had never faced a movie camera earlier. But once the process started things fell in place. Amitesh helped us a lot on this front,” said Kanchan.

Initially, Kanchan faced some problems during training. “There were some minor technical problems like distinguishing fast lanes and slow lanes. But gradually I overcame these difficulties. Now, many women ask me to teach them how to drive an autorickshaw,” she added.

The three women don’t want to look back and are concerned about the future of all those women who are facing troubles and are willing to do something to improve the condition of their families.

“I hope that the story of our lives in the documentary inspires others to move ahead in life despite obstacles,” Shobha told The Telegraph.

Echoing a similar sentiment, Gudiya said: “There will be problems in life. They are bound to come. The beauty of life lies in finding solutions to those. I hope the documentary gives out that message in a meaningful way.”