A Family Drama Over Gender in "Holy Curse"

""I've done that so many times," Kapoor told me, laughing, on a Zoom call from her home in Jersey City. In the film, one culprit is Radha, an androgynous preteen suffering through the gender codifications of early puberty. Radha and their parents, who live in America, are visiting relatives in India, and the adults view Radha's queerness as an ancestral "curse" that must be ceremonially lifted. The visual language of the film-marked by claustrophobic shots, handheld closeups, and jump cuts-mirrors Radha's agitation."

"In a simpler story, the uncle who arranges a ritual to cleanse Radha would be the villain. But Kapoor's fable reflects the knowledge that repressive cultural norms can be enforced even by well-meaning people. The character was inspired by her grandfather, who played a similar role in her own childhood. "I grew up thinking I was a boy," Kapoor, now thirty-seven, said. In India, in the nineties, she played sports with the boys and mirrored their mannerisms and style. Her father called her beta, or "son," as a term of endearment. "When my body started changing, my grandfather would say, 'You can't talk like this,' 'You can't sit like this,' 'You are a girl.' I didn't understand what that meant.""

A U.S.-based Indian filmmaker's short, "Holy Curse," centers on Radha, an androgynous preteen whose queerness is perceived as an ancestral "curse" and targeted by a ceremonial cleansing. Radha and their American parents visit relatives in India, where adults attempt a ritual that reflects how repressive cultural norms can be enforced even by well-meaning family members. The film employs claustrophobic shots, handheld closeups, and jump cuts to mirror Radha's agitation. The uncle arranges the ritual, but the story draws from a grandfather figure and childhood policing of gender expression. The filmmaker grew up in Ghaziabad amid constrained self-expression and later moved to New York to work as a cinematographer, finding a lack of nuanced portrayals of the South Asian diaspora.

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