Beyond the Blues

About the Film

‘Beyond the Blues' is a journey undertaken with Neel whose metamorphosis from an Assigned Female at Birth (AFAB) person to a feminist non-masculinist transman is not just a story of gender affirmative transition. It is a story of breaking heteronormative gender roles, challenging transnormative stereotypes and revisiting queer feminist aspirations. The film explores notions of identity and selfhood tied to questions of normativity, masculinity and citizenship. Beyond the blues focuses much needed attention on the lives of transmasculine persons in a time when the transmasculine community is almost always invisibilised and thereby rendered an insignificant political identity.

About the Director

An alumna of the Berlinale Talent Campus, Debalina is an independent filmmaker, cameraperson and photographer, based in Kolkata, India. In a career spanning more than twenty five years, she emerged as the one of the few directors in India working on same gender narratives, in both documentary and fiction formats. Her films are regularly screened in classrooms, community spaces, as well as in film festivals.