Tista Das
» Transgendered
A transexual woman, Tista, already has two films in her booty. “I had been working as research assistant in Calcutta for a University of Berkeley fellow on gender identity disorder. I had amassed a whole lot of material on the subject and had written a script for a film to deal with the topic.”
When Tista had taken her idea to film-maker Buddhadeb Dasgupta, he made her act in a 25-minute documentary I could not be your son, mom, which was eventually shot partly in her Agarpara home and Calcutta.
“In Buddhada’s movie, I did not have much acting to do. But as I faced the camera for the first time, I realised it was my calling,” says Tista.
Next came Subrata Dutta’s 45-minute film The Third Gender? which was screened at the Bulgaria film festival recently. “I played actress Arunima Ghosh’s friend and confidante. Though the name hints at some ambiguous gender in the film, I was not directly part of that ambiguity. In fact, the name alludes to Arunima’s character in the movie,” says Tista.
Gender bender: will and way to cross over
