Back in 2016, when Anita Singh, a Bengaluru-based filmmaker, was looking for a topic to make a documentary, pride parades were gaining popularity in India. To understand the community’s struggle and bring to forth their stories, she decided to make a documentary that provided a voice to the queer community. Four years later, her documentary Outcast premieres in India on July 27 at the Kashish - Mumbai International Queer Film Festival which is being hosted online due to the pandemic and social distancing norms.
The documentary was previously screened at International Queer Film Festival Playa del Carmen (Mexico) in November 2019. It has has become the talk of the town as several actors like Manoj Bajpayee, Adil Hussain, Kubbra Sait, Rahul Dev, and Nikkhil Advani tweeted the trailer of the documentary. “It is overwhelming to such strong support for a documentary,”
“I had completed my first documentary on elderly people and old-age homes, and I was looking for something new and of importance to work on. At that time, the voice from the queer community against Section 377 was growing stronger. It had been three years since Supreme Court had overturned Delhi High Court’s judgement of decriminalising homosexuality. The LGBTQIA+ was fighting for their place in the community,” says Anita over the phone from Bengaluru.
Director Anita Singh
An engineer by profession and a filmmaker by passion, Anita shot the documentary for three years during which she interviewed 22 people and attended three pride parades in Bengaluru. “I had to juggle between a full-time corporate job and filmmaking, so I could shoot only on weekends. I wanted to include voices of various representatives from the community, so I spoke to gay men, lesbian couples, individuals who identify themselves as transgender and also organisations and people that are supporting the queer community like Naz Foundation and Ashok Row Kavi, director of Humsafar to understand the long-standing battle of the community,” says the filmmaker.
Of all the stories that she heard during the course of this documentary, the tale of a Dalit man that was narrated by queer activist Rumi Harish has still stayed with her. “A trans man who worked as a daily wager fell in love with an upper-caste woman but her family did not approve of it and married her to another guy. Despite the marriage, the couple continued with their relationship. When the woman’s father learnt about it he picked up a fight with the trans man, stripped him and then sexually abused him in public. He went on to parade the guy around the village while the villagers stood as mute spectators. The incident is a human rights violation and yet such stories are not uncommon in our country.”
A still from ‘Outcast’
The 112-minute documentary captures such stories of struggle and injustice to the members of the queer community and their struggle to attain acceptance in the society. “Decriminalising homosexuality is definitely a step forward as it has helped the community members to come out of their closet and express themselves freely. But the stigma and the prejudice against the community still remains and it will take a lot more time for our society to accept the queer members as a part of its own,” she adds.
Outcast will also be screened at the upcoming edition of Out & Loud - Pune International Queer Film Festival
(You can watch the documentary at home by registering at Kashish - Mumbai International Queer Film Festival’s website.)
