Indian Transsexual Film Starring India's Transsexual Celebrity

Hello all,

My name is Rose Venkatesan. I am India's first transsexual celebrity. Google search using 'Rose Venkatesan' as key word. I recently underwent sex change and became India's first celebrity to have sex change. I am very popular in India. My goal is to make transsexuality acceptable in India, as transsexuals are forced to live out of begging and prostitution on the fringes of society in India. Already my coming out on TV in India has changed the way people see transsexuals in Tamil Nadu,India where my tv show is received. Indian movies have traditionally shown transsexuals as cheap clowns or evil wrong-doers. No film set in India has shown transsexuals as valid people with feelings, interests and the right the live with dignity. I have written a script partly based on my life and the rest contains some fiction and based on common issues facing transsexuals in India. The film will expose society's hypocrisy in its treatment of transsexuals and probably pave the way for better understanding and acceptance of the transsexual lifestyle. I am interesting in turning this script into an English film. I believe that this script has a niche audience around the world. I will be featuring in the film. I am interested in seeking interesting investors, film sales agents/distributors from around the world, who can passionately help bring this film to a large worldwide audience and also make money in the process. You can contact me via email at ramsbab@yahoo.com .

Thanks
Rose

I love the goals you're trying to achieve. I hope you find your investors. I think the hardest part of what you're trying to do is getting the home audience to go along for the ride. The goals you've presented would, however, play extremely well at international film festivals and garner support from abroad. A well made film addressing these social issues is perfect for getting into film festivals and even taking home awards!

I wish you the best.

Welcome Rose!

I think you have a great worldview, and I admire your objectives. I wish you the best in finding funding. Please keep us updated on your progress.

The very best of luck Rose, you have my admiration and wishes.

welcome and goodluck!

Hi Rose!

Welcome to the boards. I have a lot of respect for what you're trying to do. If you don't mind, I'm gonna throw in my two cents.

First -- on trying to find investors, producers, etc.:

Look, I've never done it (sought investors), plus I don't know the story you've written, so I'm purely speculating on this one. For what it's worth, though, I think you might be better off going rogue on this one -- produce it yourself. Fund it yourself. Make an ultra-low budget film.

Frankly, transexuals don't have it much better in America. I'm not sure if an investor is going to see the pot of gold at the end of the tunnel; they might think your film is being made for a fringe audience.

Producing it yourself will take A LOT of work. It would also probably mean that you would need to become a Jill-of-All-Trades. You would have to learn pretty much every aspect of filmmaking, because on an ultra-low budget production, the producer is pretty much responsible for everything. That doesn't mean you won't collaborate, and let your crew make their best creative inputs, but you would definitely have to do a lot of overseeing.

Secondly -- on the story of your movie --

So, obviously, I know nothing about the story you've written, cuz you haven't really shared it with us, save for the agenda behind it. That being said, based on what you've described, my intuition makes me worry that you've written a "message movie".

Personally, I'm not a fan of message movies. I don't like it when I feel like I'm being preached at, even when I agree with the message. I go to movies to see a good story told, not to hear a message. But that doesn't mean a powerful message can't be interjected into a wonderful story.

Off the top of my head, the movie that comes to mind is "Billy Elliot". Wow, that is an awesome movie! On the surface, it's just a really fun movie about a boy who wants to dance. Underneath the surface, it delivers a powerful message of gay acceptance.

When I think about how a movie could promote transexual acceptance, I think that maybe the most effective way to do this might be to make a movie that's NOT about transexual acceptance. Make a movie that is universal -- a story that everyone can relate to. Except, the person who has to deal with this universal struggle just happens to be transexual.

Anyway, best of luck!

Thank you everyone for your encouragement. That's heartening.

Chuck, it's definitely not a message movie. But anyone who watches the movie will be moved and will understand and begin to respect transsexuality. Also, yes i am going to produce the movie on my own. But i was interested to get the word out to try to connect with potential buyers/sales agents.

It's the story of a young son of an upper class Indian family, who returns to India after education in the US in the identity of a woman to the shock of the family. The family tries to hide their son's transsexuality and get him married to a girl, but the plan fails as the son comes out openly. The son (from now a girl) is thrown out and then begins the ordeal of life as a transsexual in India for her. All along, she is determined to live a life of dignity and her goal is to become a movie director. With the help of a social service organization, she gets a place to live, which would otherwise be impossible in India and a job. The leader of the organization, sympathetic to her condition and in admiration of her commendable skills, places her in a film studies college program, after several failed attempts to find a college for her, all of them denying her admission. At college, she is verbally harassed and denied basic human treatment, but she stays determined and finally finds friends. A guy, who has been regularly harassing her, falls in love with her. Meanwhile, she is kidnapped to Mumbai for forced prostitution by a flesh-trading transsexual leader. The guy looks for her to propose, but finds that she is kidnapped to Mumbai. He goes out of his way to save and bring back his love. She rejects his love proposal stating that society would not accept their love and his family would not allow this as most marriages in India are arranged by family. The guy impresses her with his care and affection for her. He even arranges money to send her to Thailand for her sex change surgery. All is well, he finishes college before her, gets a job and promises to meet her regularly, and to marry her within a year. But a few months past, he avoids her calls, and ignores her. The hurt girl tries to meet him to find out what happened only to learn that he is engaged to another girl and is soon going to marry her. He cites her transsexuality as the reason that he cannot marry her, in contrast to his policy standing at the time of attracting her love initially. The dejected transsexual lead attempts suicide over the loss of her much-loved boyfriend, but is saved by a transsexual friend. She is berated by this friend and encouraged to achieve her goal of becoming a movie director. She musters all the courage and strength to focus on her career and becomes successful. A few years later, the guy who loved and later ditched her, returns to see her when she is successful. She refuses to meet him and tells her secretary not to allow him into the office without even seeing how he is, but he is now a physically challenged guy who has lost his limbs in an accident. The accident and the loss of limbs has cost him his marriage. The girl to whom he was engaged has rejected him, and he is now in a situation similar to transsexuals in India, he can not find a person to marry and live with, as physically challenged people in India are treated unfit by Indian society to lead a married life. The transsexual lead finally says 'i have succeeded in career, but my personal life is a failure' to her close friend.

The story has enough twists and turns and follows the life of a person who just happens to be transsexual. Now, does it still sound like a message movie?

It sounds like a message movie to me.

Sales agents, distributors and potential buyers are
only interested in completed movies so you shouldn't
focus on that aspect. Your chances of finding funding
in the States are not good. I see no reason why the
final product couldn't find an international market, but
funding is likely going to need to come from people
known to you.

I think the story is compelling, but I agree it sounds like a "Message" movie. I like the comparisons in the ending on an intellectual level, but am unsure whether I'd enjoy watching it as a film. Which is not to say it's not a good approach to the film, Message movies end up being avoided by the general movie-going public in the US and being directly preached to can be off-putting to the target audience, even at international film festivals. working the story a bit to make it more about the person and less about their "condition" could have more potential to reach an audience. Again, we haven't read the script either, so the synopsis above may just be more on point than the actual script.

Yep, that's a message movie. Plus, it's not so much a movie as it is an epic. You've got a whole lot of story going on there. That's a three-hour movie.

I'm sorry to repeat myself, but I really feel like your intended message of transsexual acceptance will be so much more effective if you make a movie that's NOT about transsexual acceptance.

Make a SPORTS MOVIE, or a ROMANTIC COMEDY, or a BUDDY COP movie, or any of the litany of pre-established genres, and follow all of the conventions. Except, the main character is transsexual, and you treat that character with dignity.

Most people won't easily identify with a transsexual character -- it's not that we don't want to, it's just that we haven't dealt with the same issues. So, make a classic story that we can all identify with -- that will pull us into your character. Then, while you've got us, you sneak in subtle bits about what it's like to be a transsexual. Boom -- you just rocked our world.

Cracker Funk said:

Boom -- you just rocked our world.

Click to expand...

Quoted for truth. I don't like being preached at.

Every good movie has some kind of message. ("The Expendables", for example, seems to have the message, "What happened to 80s action movies?!? We all liked those!")

Make a good movie that just happens to have a transsexual main character.

It’s neither here nor there, but I don’t like that the character wants to be involved in film making. I’m not saying it is true in your case, but I think many arrive at a point in writing when they do the story about a screenwriter or the story about a film maker, (Hollywood must gets hundreds or thousands of scripts about screenwriters every year!) and to me it just seems too typical. I can understand if maybe it is semi-biographical, but even then I still feel the same way.

Personally I would go typical, but in a way that can work with a theme, like “Don’t judge a book by its cover” (or something similar), like maybe the character is an exceptionally gifted painter that isn’t permitted to attend art school, but can sell anything they paint. Then when this great work by an unknown artist is discovered by high society patrons of the arts, and they seek out the artist to praise and celebrate and commission and elevate them to the greatness they all agree is deserved, the artist’s identity is revealed, and we see these powerful elite that we felt for a moment were like heroes or saviors suddenly go from impressed and intrigued and liberated by the art itself, to being judgmental hypocrites because of the artist. At some point maybe we see the paintings out in the rain with their colors and meanings and hope washing away. Maybe this leads to some kind of fictional sexual identity censorship movement in all colleges, and when the artist speaks out against the government and ingrained social norms, they are left forbidden by law to display or sell their art ever again.

I don’t know, but I can see something like that working on many levels.

Best of luck all the same.

-Thanks-