Bride of Aravan

Synopsis

Taking a character-driven approach, Bride of Aravan follows Bawadharini, a transgender woman in South India, as she navigates the joys, grief, and challenges of life in a prejudiced society. Once a year, her community celebrates a vibrant two-day festival in which they ceremonially marry the warrior god Aravan—an ancient ritual drawn from the Mahabharata epic in which Aravan consents to die in battle only after becoming married. To fulfill his wish, Krishna takes the female form of Mohini to become his bride for one night.

Revered as akin to goddess Mohini for one day, the trans women experience a stark inversion of their prejudice that marks their daily life. Through mythic performance, revelry, and collective mourning, the film shows how ritual, joy, and transcendence intersect, as Bawadharini reflects on community, dignity, and the fragile space where faith and identity converge.

Bawadharini

Bhawadharini is a respected elder in her transgender community kinship network, which nurtures younger trans women. She has a master degree in IT and an award as the most educated trans woman in her state, yet she has been denied employment in her field, and at one stage was forced into sex work. She works with Sahodaran NGO in Pondicherry city to promote transgender rights. Articulate and gently charismatic, her story is interwoven with two other narrative threads to capture the broad scope of trans experience in south India. 

Director biographies

Lesley Branagan is an Australian independent filmmaker and social anthropologist, specialising in Indian culture. Her films have screened internationally in film festivals and TV and won various awards. She works as a social anthropology academic at Hamburg University, Germany. She is passionate about telling stories that foreground the voices of subjects navigating between traditional and modern practices in India. 

Co-director Yatra Srinivassan has directed and produced dozens of documentary and drama films in Tamil and English. He is also an actor and award-winning playwright. He is the founder and director of Yatra Arts Media near Pondicherry city, which provides professional filmmaking services.

Cinematographer and co-editor Jeremy Carroll is a Franco-American filmmaker based in Pondicherry since 2004.

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