Living in the margins

Melb-based Mayur Katariya wins Best First Time Filmmaker award for his take on India’s trans community

A well-known actress wanted to play the role of the guru in the movie, he reveals, but he declined.

“It was a difficult decision; it would have made funding for the movie much easier!” he laughs. “But I didn’t want to deprive them of the opportunity.”

A tough but sensitive decision for an independent filmmaker, and one that strengthens the movie and its social impact program of promoting education for the kinnars

He adds, “India’s approximately 5 million transgender women have no access to education and career, despite its progressive policies (on paper) for transgender people.”

Sadly, Katariya reported that his actors faced discrimination and abuse while they were filming in Gujarat. Though Indian law is changing to make the lives of its trans population better, societal and cultural attitudes are harder to change.

All the more reason for a movie like Ek Aasha, for it is cultural change along with structural change which will move transgender people from the margins to the mainstream.