What I have learnt? I have some very good friends. A crash course in marketing and the reality of production. Is it possible to make money out of film without being in the mainstream? I’m not sure but I do see more of a way.  Now to capitalize on it.

The film looked lovely. All the people who came out to see it a second time remarked on the difference between that and when I showed them the rough cut in the spring. That’s what colour grading is for. Thank you Toby.

Peter Tatchell interview with Sunil Babu Pant was very moving. Then we all ate Nepali food. It was something I’m really proud to be part of.

Next screening are Coepnhagen and Paris LBGT Film Festivals and the Human Right film festival in Glasgow.

Now for the next film.

It has been a lesson in marketing. Making the film is the fun part. Distributing it is another matter. I’ve read the marketing and distribution advice from various advice givers that surround the industry. It’s good but one has to find a way to make it fit one’s personality and project. For these screening I did my best, but have to reach out further if the film is going to live by itself.

Sunil is an inspiration. He can pick up a phone, send an email and get on with it. He can reach out to anyone. I am thankful for his involvement and support.

The audience reaction to the film was positive and so was the feedback. It was the next step in getting it out into the world. Birkbeck Cinema is a lovely space although rather orange. It has the best projection facilities I’ve found so far.

Now for the Screening tonight. All singing and dancing. Sunil will be interviewed by Peter Tatchell.

Niraj is a godsend. He came to work with me randomly. My sister-in-law met him at a Salsa class. He was between jobs and had a little time so… a couple of months later he is still here. He never thought post production was quite so long. He’s now a convert to film rather than a normal job where one can actually earn a living. Thank god, I would never have got to this point without him.

The trailer for the film can be seen on

http://www.vimeo.com/6544197

The first thing to mention is that Nepal’s Supreme Court took the courageous step to give full citizen rights to sexual and gender minorities. Nepal is the first country in the world to recognize  third gender as a legal category. The rest of the world is still dealing in male and female. It is also the 7th country in the world to give full marriage rights to gay and lesbains, transgenders, bisexuals and intersex. 

Nepal is proving to more progressive than many countries especially its neighbour India.

Sunil Babu Pant is speaking at the UN in New York this week. Nepal is the 56 country to  pledge support to the gay rights statement being put out by the UN.

The winners of the Beauty and Brains are now being trained in their duties while I go back to the beginning of the contest and start the edit.

Otherwise we’ve just been trying to sort out thing organisation stuff, such as funding. More forms and emails.

I got to Biratnagar before the trainers. Sameer arrived late to pick me up because there had been a completely different strike somewhere else. Sameer was commuting from Dharan (his home town) to save money on hotels.  Training started that afternoon. The group was not what I was expecting. They looked male especially when next to the transgenders from Kathmandu. The Kathmandu trainers are taking hormones so they are more feminine and have breasts. The trend for hormones seems to have been quite recent and was started after someone took a trip to Bangkok. It also explains why so much time is spent looking in a mirror. I can remember puberty and developing breasts, but teenager to woman is less extreme than man to woman. Change is fascinating. 

The physical difference was not only that the Kathmandu trainers had breasts but also that they were much paler. Beauty in Nepal is pale. The TV shows ads for skin lighteners and sun blocks. Here dark is considered unattractive. For me one of the most beautiful girl was the darkest, Boniha. She did not make the top five, but I think from the beginning she knew she would not get through because of her colour.  She was also the most amusing. Colour is definitely another form of discrimination here. But Boniha was the same caste as some of the much paler contestants, one of whom was in the top three. I understand that I have a very different conception of beauty to the Nepalese, but multiple layers and interwoven of discrimination a person can be burdened with almost beyond my comprehension.

The contestants asked me what my caste was.  To say middle class doesn’t really mean a lot here. They asked me for my last name to see if that helped with clarity as last names indicate caste. Confusingly there are dark Brahmins and light lower castes so colour is not the hard and fast indicator of status as it is of “beauty”. I am not sure if I have met any Dallits (Untouchables) in the time that I’ve been here, as I do not know how to tell. Nor am I sure how the indigenous groups fit in except that it is somewhere below Brahmins and above the Dallits. Most of the young straight people I have met say they are going to marry someone from the same caste as them rather than look outside for a partner. The Metis cannot be quite that choosey. 

However, on a possible positive note, it seems having a job can overcome all sorts of prejudices even being a Meti. The negative side to this note is that there are so few people with jobs that a regular income is the most effective way of removing years of stigma. 

We talked to an older 3rd gender that had suffered years of prejudice from her community. Now she has a job she is respected. She even has straight people coming up to her to ask how they can get a job with BDS. Shrepri, one of the contestants found me wandering the town and showed me round. She introduced me to a number of local Métis and gay men. She pointed out the unemployment. Many of the people sitting in shops were not sales people but unemployed passing the day away. Those that have jobs work hard. The waiters at our hotel work seven days a week from about 6.30 am to 21.00 -22.00. They couldn’t even get the time off to come and see the show. 

This was the best show yet, camera and lights wise. The technicians were competent and Sunil had banned the smoke from being used when anyone was actually on the stage as it obscures the audiences view. I was familiar enough with the contestants that I didn’t have to drag Sameer backstage to translate. Because I had been alone much of the time with the trainers and transgenders for much of the time, they took pity on me and made the effort to communicate with me. Their English was far better than my Nepali. By time it came to the show they did not seem to mind me waving a camera around as they changed or adjusted their bra straps as when it was twisted. 

It was hard to predict the results of this show. The standard of the talent round was not as high as the previous two shows. But these contestants had a lot less training and are more isolated. The floods cut the Eastern the area off from the rest of the country. The devastation is clear from the plane. The river has moved and villages are still flooded. Iesa was the most masculine contestant to date. He has a fit male physic and strong features. The transformation was extraordinary. He was the most articulate and performed the best talent round. He made the top five but not the top three. Chinchilla won. She was a popular winner.

After the contest we hung out at the hotel for a little while. We mess around and posed with Sunil’s escort. The police that had driven him to the hall hung arround for the rest of the day. Sunil might be a VIP, but his escort seemed to get bigger as the day went on. Maybe they were attracted by the novelty of transgenders and the show.

 Two days after Pokhara we headed for Naranghat. I went with the BDS bus as Deep has gone trekking in Upper Mustang with his family for the holidays. The schedule keeps changing so it is very hard to plan one’s life outside the Beauty and Brains and if one does the dates will change to the week you planned to do something else.  Subass is valiently trying to keep me posted, and for all my “definite, definite?” I know it is not in his control. 

Naranghat is described in the lonely planet as a bus stop of a town. It is large, sprawling and most buses do stop there on their way to east and west Nepal. It is a busy, hot, humid and flat town. Unlike Katmandu, there are rickshaws everywhere. Naranghat might be a bus stop but it cannot be dismissed as only that. It is the gateway to Nepal. Much of what comes into Nepal passes through Naranghat. Indeed the province of Chitwan has many intellectuals and is where many of the Maoist leaders come from. There is even talk of moving the capital of Nepal there. I can see the advantages such as good location, communication links and room to expand, but personally I think it would be a mistake as it is far too hot. It made work hard.

The office of BDS is call Human Consciousness Society. Another R, who is gay rather than transgender, runs it. He is HIV+ and explains his situation well. He discovered he was HIV+ after failing the medical in Dubai. Even when told he was HIV+ he was given no information, no councilling  and no support. He did not know what having HIV meant. His family’s way of helping was to try and arrange a marriage for him. This seems a typical to response when confronted with anything to do with LBGTI. Needless to say it did not work out. R was isolated until he found BDS. I know many people who are HIV+ but R was the first person Sameer had ever met with HIV. HIV/AIDs is not something that the general population is familiar with.  The office seems really efficient at education and outreach and has good links with the community. A press conference was organized to promote the contest. Not all press ignores LBGTI issues as I first thought. However, the Naranghat press did have a problem with the title of the show. They did not think that transgenders could be beautiful. Beauty for many of them is exclusively female. This point was not resolved in the meeting, but I do wonder if the contest helped the journalists changed their minds. 

Training. It was hot. The Pokhara contest had upped the stakes in terms of the talent round. Many of the Katmandu and Naranghat contestants had gone to Pokhara to support their friends so had seen how the talent round had changed the result. They could not be complacent. This group were coached hard on their performances by the trainers. The people that stood out for me were Sondya who is very beautiful and did the most original drama so far, the stunning Melina, local girl Sushma who is determinedly trying to teach me Nepali and Jyoti who has a haute couture look and is articulate and well educated 

The show was delayed, as Sunil’s plane was late. He is now something of a celebrity and it was felt the show couldn’t start without him. The theatre was packed. It was larger than the Pokhara place.  The competition was close. Sondya, Jyoti (who did a speech), Melina (who read a poem), Swashstika (who did a drama) dominated the talent round. The top five was Jyoti, Sondya, Melina and the two local girls Sushma and Anjeli. The top five could not all be from Kathmandu. The audience was behind Anjeli and Sushma. Anjeli did badly in the question round. The best answers were Jyoti, Sondya and Sushma. Melina was a little hesitant. The final result was 2nd runner up – Jyoti, 1st runner up – Sondya and the winner was Sushma. 

Next we go east to Biratigar. Because of the floods in that area we have not met these contestants yet. Because of the roads we have to fly. I leave tomorrow at 8am.

I’ll write again when I’m back.