Outside Girija Theatre, Thrissur, Suresh Narayanan stood without the nervousness of a debutante film director. Irattajeevitham, that had just been screened, is the first feature film of the documentary maker who had been, for years, talking about social issues. When he decided to venture into feature films, he knew it had to be something he believed in, something he had to tell the world about — and thus happened Irattajeevitham, inspired from a short story penned by his friend Ahamed Mueenudheen.
“The film is about the relationship between Amina and Saina who are friends since childhood. At one point, Amina disappears and everyone but Saina believes that she eloped with someone. A decade later, Amina returns as Adraman, a male,” says Suresh, leaving the rest to the audience to watch and experience.
With many friends from the transgender community, the director had been attempting to learn about them and their issues for some time. He observes, “Living in a so-called binary world — of men and women — I yearned to share with the world the life of sexual minorities. A lot has been said about male-to-female transgender persons, whom, I personally feel, are celebrated as sexual objects. For a transwoman, who goes just one level down the hierarchy, acceptance and visibility are better compared to a transman. That was something I wanted to focus on.”
When he came across the short story, Suresh found what he had been looking for. The most difficult part was to find Adraman. He recalls, “We were looking everywhere to find a person who’d bring life to Adraman. Last year, during the Pagan Fest in Kochi, I met Athmaja, who was a friend of a friend. When she heard that I was looking for a face, she offered to take it up. At first, I thought she was joking, but she wasn’t.” The response to the premier show couldn’t have been better.
The rest of the cast were all friends, theatre persons and the people at the location — the coastal village Anchangadi near Chavakkad, beautifully captured by lensman Shehanad Jalal. Suresh owes the success to producer M.G. Vijay. “Without him, this movie wouldn’t have happened. It was on the second day of the shooting that demonetisation was announced. A week later, we had to pack up,” he says. But Suresh stayed back, improvising his script and interacting with the villagers for the next four to five months. His crew and actors visited time and again, mingling with the people, playing their local games.
“A place that is not influenced by Gulf money, the coastal village had people living in poverty. They had no idea about transgender persons. They didn’t know that their fellow villager Faisal is a transgender person and an activist, as he had been maintaining a neutral visual identity. While developing the movie, we introduced Faisal to them and they interacted with him. They were quick to accept his identity and they all love him without any stigma,” Suresh says. Along with the trans life, the movie talks about demonetisation and other social issues, what they experienced during its making. Suresh is planning to take the movie to various parts of the state by arranging screenings. He concludes, “Mine is not a movie for the mass audience; it’s a genuine attempt to tell some things that need to be told.”
