KOCHI: When Ananya Kasaravalli showed the final cut of her debut film, ‘Harikatha Prasanga’, to her father, the legendary Kannada film director Girish Kasaravalli, things didn’t turn out the way she had hoped for. “He saw the film and did not talk to me for a day, visibly disturbed. And I thought, ‘That was it for me’,” shares Ananya.
The senior Kasaravalli was one among the three screenplay writers of the movie, the others being Ananya and renowned writer Gopalkrishna Pai. After a day, her father told her that it wasn’t the picture he had directed in his mind. Her worst fears were almost coming true, but there was a twist: he said he liked it a lot, the subtlety of expressions in particular, which reflected a mature mind.
Ananya knew that it was a huge compliment coming from the ace director, and her eyes sparkled while recounting the incident.
In the 21st edition of the International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK) where the minority community of transgenders was given due prominence, Ananya’s film talks of the gender identity crisis of a ‘Yakshagana’ artist.
“As a part of my course in the L V Prasad film institute, I started working on my documentary film on transgenders. It was during that time that I observed how performative our gender roles are. We end up gesturing or emoting in ways that are already dictated by common gender stereotypes. I was discussing this with writer Gopalkrishna Pai when he handed me the story that he had penned, ‘Beladi Harishchandra’. I read it, and wanted to tell the story on celluloid,” elaborates Ananya.
The film is a remarkably narrated story of Hari, a ‘Yakshagana’ artist, who plays the mythological female characters with finesse. The internal turmoil that Hari experiences while having to play female characters and live as a man, conforming to the norms, becomes the absorbing plot of the film.
The lead protagonist, ‘Hari’, is played by an upcoming Kannada actor Shrunga. He has essayed the role of a transfeminine person with such restraint and intelligence that it became a moving experience for the audience. “Shrunga is an actor who was looking out for the role of a mainstream commercial hero! His willingness to play this character is an incredible step for him,” says Ananya.
Having been an actor herself, was direction always in the picture? “Not while I was acting. I used to assist my mother in direction and she always said that I should try my hand at directing,” said Ananya, whose movie is a tribute to her mother, Vaishali Kasaravalli (1952-2010), an eminent theatre personality and director.
‘Harikatha Prasanga’ has been shown at the Busan International Film Festival, the Museum of the Moving Image in New York, Mumbai Academy of Moving Image and the International Film Festival of India, Goa, before making its presence felt at the IFFK.
Did Ananya encounter anyone from the minority community who saw her film? “Not yet,” she said, “But I would like a special screening for them, along with a discussion on the film. I will be thrilled to listen to their feedback.”