Sawt Falasteen - Elephant in the room: Nepal's first Cannes film takes on taboos

It seems an odd combination, but the two come together in his hauntingly beautiful directorial debut at the Cannes Film Festival about the perils of not acknowledging nature -- both human and animal.

Shah -- the first Nepali to make the festival's official selection -- is no provocateur. So soft spoken you have to lean in to hear him, he used to work for the Nepal Tourism Board, promoting the stunning Himalayan nation.

But as he told AFP before its premiere Wednesday, "Nepal is changing" in very big ways.

Last year the arthritic old order was toppled by a youth revolution, with Gen-Z protesters taking to the streets with the Jolly Roger flag from the manga "One Piece".

Then in March Nepalis elected 36-year-old rapper Balendra Shah prime minister -- the world's youngest -- by a landslide.

- Ancient third gender -

Shah -- no relation -- is proud and excited for his homeland.

Nepal is also one of fewer than two dozen nations that recognise a third gender, and a pioneer on LGBTQ+ rights in Asia.

But Shah said much of that tolerance "is just on paper". And he wonders how his touching thriller will be received back home.

It centres on the matriarch of a traditional transsexual household in the south of the country where villagers battle nightly to scare off wild elephants from the shrinking forests that surround it.

The Kinnar community, called Hijra or the third sex in India, has ancient cultural and religious roots in the subcontinent, both in Hinduism and Islam.

They sing and dance and their blessings are auspicious for births and weddings or to scare off evil spirits.

Gender realignment is called "emasculation" in Nepal, Shah said, but the Kinnar "have another very beautiful word for it, 'Nirvana.'"

Many live together in strictly organised Kinnar families, he said, each led by a mother who in turn looks to a Kinnar guru.

- Ignoring the haters -

Shah became obsessed by their little-known inner lives as he scrolled TikTok during lockdown.

He was hugely taken by the "joyful videos they posted -- singing, dancing, joking", but also by their collective courage in the face of "so many shocking hate remarks".

Most Nepalese people "see Kinnar just as having this ability to bless them or as prostitutes," he said.

So he is delighted that so far the reaction to the trailer for "Elephants in the Fog" has been positive.

"Either something is changed or they don't realise it's a trans woman," he said, as it features the remarkable Kinnar activist Pushpa Thing Lama.

She had never acted but Shah realised he had found someone with a screen presence you can't teach.

- Elephants being squeezed -

"When she is joyful she is so joyful," the director said, "but when she is quiet she has this calm and silence you can't take your eyes from."

Shah said he wanted to show how the Kinnar are at once a central part of Nepalese and Indian culture and at the same time pushed to the fringes.

Most Kinnar "start as a sex workers", Shah said, "because they are thrown out by their families. Then, when they are frustrated with that life, they join a Kinnar family," taking a vow of chastity, he said.

Shah spent two years reaching out to the Kinnar community and to villagers in the south of the country where the film is shot, who also play themselves.

As for the elephants, their habitat is being squeezed all over Nepal as forests and jungles are cut down.

"Elephants are very smart, and they move around on ancient routes... like GPS in their brains, so if put up fences they will just go through them," Shah said.

There is a saying in Nepal, he said: "Run into the river if you see a rhino. Climb a tree if you see a tiger. But for an elephant just pray to God."

O.Mousa--SF-PST