Tasveer and Bellevue Arts Museum team up to present a series of films for people to discover and enjoy a range of South Asian films paired with a BAM exhibition. All films have English subtitles and include a post-screening audience discussion. In honor of Pride Month, Tasveer and BAM will be screening the film Guru: A Hijra Family.
Bellevue Arts Museum, Auditorium
$5
Selected Film: Guru: A Hijra Family
75 min / HD / 2016 / Directed by Laurie Colson & Axelle Le Dauphin
We, the hijras, were born neither man nor woman. We were born somewhere in the middle. Our name was already mentioned in Sanskrit texts, more than a thousand years ago. It evoked beauty, bravery, and straightforwardness. I try to act as a good guru towards my daughters; I want to teach them how to live properly. It’s not essential to only seek happiness; one must learn to be respected. If one of my daughters is frightened, I tell her: “We cut off a part of our body, thus we can live freed from fear when faced to death.” Those who fear don’t survive. Strength is life. In my next life, I want to be born hijra again, so is my wish and God is witness that we are strong people with pure hearts. This is what I believe and what I wish to pass on . . . -- Lakshmi Amma
Guru documents the work and daily life of a family of hijras in a small village in the state of Tamil Nadu in southern India. Silky, Mahima, Trisha, Durga, Kuyili, Priyanka, Vasundhara, and Yamuna, under the firm protection of their guru Lakshmi Ma, offer us intimate vignettes from their lives as noble outcasts. From the thousand-year-old sacred tradition of the hijra to the minute complexities of the present, Guru progresses like a poem recited by several voices in which the world is a treacherous playing field and where, to live the third gender authentically requires a resistance that is stronger in numbers.