A film maker who won an award for her first documentary about a cross-dressing Indian boy, is hoping to repeat her success with an exploration into India’s caste system.
Nida Vohra, from Croydon won an audience award at the Bombay Mix Festival for her eight minute documentary Khel.
The short film is about her time with an eleven-year-old Indian boy who likes to dress up as a girl and enter dance competitions.
Miss Vohra met the young transvestite while she was volunteering as a teacher in the remote Indian village of Ampurkashi in 2007.
She began to film her conversations with her young friend and put the results together in the form of her first documentary.
She said: “The film is a humorous and touching documentary about eleven-year-old Govinda Gupta, a village boy from northern Indian who has a passion for wearing women's clothing and dancing.
“Through indulging in various innocent disguises Govinda begins to notices the darker disguises in life and we wonder what shadow this reality will cast upon his playtime.”
Miss Vohra’s second documentary is more serious with less of the lighthearted frivolity of Khel, it is about the untouchable caste in India.
She made the film for the Dalit Foundation.
She said: “The film depicts some of the issues, individuals they work with in India.
“The Dalit Foundation are a charity who struggle to protect the rights of a group of marginalised people in India, traditionally referred to as the untouchable caste - Dalits. These people are often deprived of basic human rights.”
One of the women she interviews is Reshma, who was given to a man in an arranged marriage and he then sold her in Delhi for 20,000 rupees to a group of men who forced her to work as a prostitute.
She was rescued and returned to her village where she is working to support her family.
Miss Vohra, who is living in New York, is circulating the film around festivals and is hoping to repeat her success with Khel and win another accolade.
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