Kaakroch… to portray woes of transgender people

Visakhapatnam: Even as the world has fallen apart, they continue to stay strong. Despite the societal discrimination, social and cultural violence, the transgender community experiences tough times in every phase of their life.

Moved by their untold struggles and unheard episodes, film maker Palicherla Suneel Kumar Reddy is coming up with another thought-provoking mainstream cinema that essays the pain the transgender community has endured. "Apparently, transgender persons are the unrepresented sections of society. The ordeals that they experience in the form of body shaming, social acceptance and stigma are not just painful and suffocating but also unimaginable. As a responsible film maker, I want to highlight their core issues and lend them a voice to vent out the dark phase of their life through the medium," conveys Suneel Kumar Reddy, a recipient of five Nandi awards.

In an exclusive interview with The Hans India, the film maker, who is writing and directing the upcoming movie 'Kaakroch', says that the idea is to bring transgender community on board for the cinema and provide them a platform in the 'reel' world. Apart from the main lead character essayed by a transgender, a number of others from the community would get an opportunity to showcase their acting skills in Kaakroch.

Weaving emotional threads along with crime elements, Suneel says, most part of the movie will be canned in Visakhapatnam other than Hyderabad and Mumbai. A considerable amount of research work has gone into the project. "Elaborate interactive sessions with the transgender and LGBTQ communities aided in understanding the pain they have come across. In most cases, family honour superseded individual preferences. That is when many are forced to leave their home for good to explore other possibilities. The worrying fact is that a majority of them go through violence in their own homes," explains the film-maker, who has so far made about 25 feature films.

Suneel's earlier movies focused on a number of social issues. Some of them include 'Gangaputrulu' that highlighted fishermen woes, 'Gulf' revolved around the miseries faced by labourers migrated to Gulf countries and 'Valasa' portrayed the journey of migrants during Covid-induced lockdown period. Kaakroch, Suneel says, is a triangular love story that depicts a multitude of challenges faced by the transgender community and aims at making the society more inclusive.

Produced by Subhash Chakravarthy Ravada and Yakkali Ravindra Babu under Sravya Films banner, Kaakroch is scheduled to hit the theatres in the first quarter of 2023 in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, metro cities along with the US and the UK.