Deepa Mehta’s documentary 'I am Sirat', which unravels the inner life of a Delhi-based transgender woman, has created a big buzz after its premiere at the ongoing Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) here.
Deepa Mehta’s documentary 'I am Sirat', which unravels the inner life of a Delhi-based transgender woman, has created a big buzz after its premiere at the ongoing Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) here.
Deepa Mehta’s documentary 'I am Sirat', which unravels the inner life of a Delhi-based transgender woman, has created a big buzz after its premiere at the ongoing Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) here.
Shot on smartphones, 'I am Sirat' explores the troubli🉐ng and 💃complex duality of her life.
Sirat has to suppress her inner urge to live like a wom𓂃an so that her mother, and a married sister and extended relatives are not scandalized.
As she was not willing to abandon her widowed mother as she was her only support, Sirat continues to live with her as her boy and rents a room to live out her real self as a traಌns woman.🦩
When her lip-synched Punjabi songs and dance reels posted on Instagram get h♋er a big following, she was forced to remove theওm by her relatives.
For this conflicted trans woman, the high point of her life arrives when she was granted her TG certificate by a government department, celebrating i🧔t by visiting India Gate with a friend and posing for pictures.
In a p𒐪ost-screening discussion, Deepa Mehta said she and Sirat produced the docu♔mentary collaboratively.
Deepa said when she was in𝔉 Delhi in November Sirat came to meet her. “She said why don’t you make a film on what I am going through. It took me ju🗹st a few days and I said: Let’s make the film.”
The Toronto-based filmmaker added, “I told Sirat: It is your film. You’re the narrator. It has to be seen through your lens. You film 🐼yourself, you make the beginning, the middle and the end and I will film you filming y꧒ourself.”
“I have known Sirat for four years now as we previously worked together on a film called Laila. Sirat is somebody who is fearless and yet is having a difficult time … having a dual existence. She is caught between her dut♛y to her mother and (desire for) self-determination.This is what she is doing t🔯o this day. I have learnt so much from her.”
For her part, Sirat – who now calls Deepa Mehta her mo💟ther – hoped that the documentary will help people and her mother accept her as a proud transgender woman.