Aunique and revolutionary step the International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK) took in its 21st edition in December 2016 was recognising, accepting and respecting the transgenders in the state by offering them the scope to register and also actively participate in the events and screenings at the festival. The festival reserved an exclusive space for members of the transgender community, who made full use of this space. As S. Sreekanth so succinctly points out, “India that boasts a diverse and heterogeneous nature, excluding an entire community with an alternative sexual and physical orientation contradicts the very idea of “Indianness” as we understand it. Transgenders are discriminated against across the world.”
Veteran filmmaker Kamal, Chairman of the Kerala State Chalachitra Academy, said, “The ability to empathise and understand the significance and relevance of contemporary happenings is certainly one of the strengths of the IFFK. For example, the package called ‘Gender Bender’ is the one that empathises with the struggle of the transgender community to gain a distinctive identity for themselves. This year, they registered as transgender while applying for delegate passes, and the festival also arranged separate rest rooms for them at the three venues where the films were being screened.”
Out of the closet
The festival grounds were spilling over with transgender personalities who became a trigger in bringing many of their peers out of their ‘closet’ status, to come out in the open and become part of the mainstream. Sheetal Shya, a transgender activist who was also the first transgender to register as a delegate at the festival said, “We are treated like celebrities here”, and many transgender delegates stripped themselves of the ‘discomfort’ of having acquired an aura the media had wrongly bestowed them with. “Leerings are making way for the camera, and this is nothing new for us and we perceive it as a positive thing,” said Sree, another transgender activist who registered as a delegate with direct recommendation of the festival chairperson Kamal.
Sheetal said that it was commendable of the festival organisers to pick them out and give them an identity through the registration process which however, stands in contradiction to state policies on the transgender identity. Persisting background realities still wait for state intervention and they still do not have access to proper identity cards, bank accounts and other official designations as they still need to fill in forms either as ‘male’ or ‘female’ as the term ‘transgender’ does not exist within the state’s official vocabulary.
In India, where films on and about transgender people and people with alternative sexual choices are rare, this has been a wonderful step taken by the IFFK this year. The “Gender Bender” segment of six films included this year chosen from across different cultures, countries and languages, raise very pertinent questions about sexuality and gender demarcations because these films highlight the anguish and dilemmas these people face. “Such films were screened earlier too, though perhaps not in a separate section. But those who were watching them were mainstream people who were distanced from the issues and problems we face, so their looking at our problems are more like an outsider looking in. This time, since we are participating in this programme, things will perhaps go beyond just the Supreme Court recognising transgenders as the third gender since 2014,” said Sree.
The festival also offered a platform for mainstream people to interact openly and positively with the transgender community which was an ideal step towards the latter’s integration and recognition. “This helped do away with many prejudices they have about us and helped them shed the stereotypes they had constructed within themselves about us,” said Sree. There is another section under the title “Migration” which, said Sheetal, “was very relevant for us because, as we are socially stigmatised for no fault on our part, many of us are forced to uproot ourselves from our roots and find shelter elsewhere, which is more difficult for us than for the mainstream.”
“Separate toilets and restrooms will help us, but will not solve the problem of being ghettoed. What we really want is to hear more tales and voices of acceptance and recognition for whatever we are, because basically, we are all human beings. We are really looking forward to a time when the state will allot separate seats in public transport for us so that we do not get laughed at by much of the mainstream,” said Sree. It was wonderful to see them dressed to their teeth, wandering around the venue in brightly coloured saris, lips coloured with lipstick with body language spelling out confidence with a capital C.
The screening programme was curated under the title “Gender-Bender” with six films from USA, The Phillipines, India, Sweden, Chile-Argentina and Lithuania. The phrase “gender-bender” is often misunderstood, misinterpreted and misrepresented in cinema which is a reflection of real life. It is a concept more than a physical reality, and it is this fluidity and ambiguity that leads to a misreading of the term. In dictionary parlance, “gender-bender” stands for “a function at which the gender roles are reversed, or manipulated in various ways. It also refers to a person who explores the boundaries of gender roles, or outright denies their existence.”
This definition excludes people born outside the physical framework of precisely biological gender. This means that they are neither fully male nor fully female but are in a state of flux. Transgenders either dress up in reverse of the sex they are born into or those who, through a series of surgeries change their biological sex. The one thing they have in is that they are oriented towards alternative sexual desires and practices.
A happy feature is that all these films were set against the backdrop of contemporary society. They were distanced from typical “coming out” stories. Loev from Sudhansu Saria from India brings in a whiff of fresh air around the gay identity in this film. Rara was about family issues specific to parents of a lesbian couple trying to bring their kids up in today’s Latin America. Quick Change steps into the fragile world of beauty contests in the Philippines where transgenders are desperate to look beautiful and gain recognition by winning at beauty contests. Front Cover explores the world of the Asian-American gay community in the US trapped between Asian culture within a Western world in a pocket comprised of Asians. Summer of Sangaile is a lesbian, coming-to-terms love story set in Lithuania. Something Must Break is the most out-of-the-box film among all these films. According to John Badalu who curated this section, “This film breaks all gender terms by making it very fluid and rebellious.” Sexuality in this film knows no boundary. Being gay or lesbian or transgender or heterosexual carries no meaning and the focus is love that transcends everything else, which can only come from Sweden.