TRANSaction: Opening up more avenues to inclusion

Two first-of-its-kind professional acting workshops for transpersons, 'TRANSaction', seek to open doors to inclusion and opportunities for the trans community. This inclusion-friendly initiative is a brainchild of Faraz Arif Ansari, director of critically acclaimed Sisak — the first ever Indian silent LGBTQ short film. "In our journey to mainstream LGBTQIA+ narratives, we often forget that access is still a major drawback for most of the trans community who don't have right support and channels to support dreams," he said.

Ansari discovered the fact while trying to cast for his next, Sabr. "Casting cisgendered trans persons has been an established practice for a long time. But that doesn't make it right. In our inclusive times, this should change — no matter how well-intentioned a project may be — it's appropriative, dangerous and ends up scoring a rather distasteful home goal. How can a film ostensibly (and often loftily) trying to bring out trans people out of denial, negation, and exclusion, end up obscuring the very same people?"

Last year, Scarlett Johansson dropped out of Rub & Tug, amid controversy over her casting as a transgender man in the film. Closer home, Anurag Kashyap's popular crime web series Sacred Games faced criticism for casting cis-actor Kubra Sait, as transwoman Kuku.

While appreciating the context of the criticism Ansari said, "For Sabr where my lead character is transgender Parsi, I went to several casting directors both here and abroad, but to no avail. Either the actor's look didn't work or the people who looked the part were complete non-actors. I'm a small independent filmmaker with not-so-deep pockets and despite good intentions, my patience wore thin as money ran out."

That's what gave him the idea to host free acting workshops. "I want to provide interested trans people with the right exposure/insight to understand and imbibe basics of acting, network with theatre and cinema professionals, casting directors and filmmakers and also support them to understand the casting process. This'll bring them closer to their dream of being a part of cinema and allied performing arts," explained Ansari, adding, "Hopefully these will help me zero in on my own lead. It'll also help set these actors on the right path. It'll be great to see other filmmakers and production houses replicate this idea to create more avenues for trans people."

The first workshop will be held in Delhi from March 1 to 3, followed by one in Ansari's home town Mumbai from March 8 to 10. "Coming from a section of society which often forms the marginalised among the marginalised, many trans people don't have the financial wherewithal and find this kind of a platform. That is why keeping it free was very important," he pointed out and thanked Keshav Suri, scion of one of India's prominent hotelier families and owner of the Kitty Su nightclubs for agreeing to provide the venues free of cost for the two three-day workshops at The Lalit hotels. Ansari who is putting his own money flying some participants admitted that his initiative is small.

"Because of financial and logistical limitations I'm still restricted to two metros," he said. However, he is happy that the clamour to participate is growing. "Some of the interested come from backgrounds with no access to smartphones/internet. For them, we've set up counters at The Lalit in both cities where they can fill a form manually."

He was thankful to actors Kalki Koechlin, Divya Dutta and Gaurav Alok, casting director Tess Joseph, dancer-choreographer Ashley Lobo and Kathakali exponent Gaurab Ghosh for agreeing to train participants.

Now that the resource persons, venue and travel is taken care of, is everything set? "I'm still looking for benefactors to help us with food/ token gift hampers for participants," he says and adds, "Someone who follows me on Insta messaged to say that she will cook biryani and bring it over on one day. If we get more such offers too it will help," said Ansari signing off.