"PETITE FILLE" BY SEBASTIEN LIFSHITZ (2020, 1h25)

​

June 20, 6 PM

Screening

@Alliance française de Colombo

PETITE FILLE - 2020, 1h25
By Sébastien Lifshitz

Followed by a debate with transgender activists Vicky

Shahjehan, Angel Queentus and Bhoomi Harendran.

"When I grow up, I'm going to be a girl," Sasha has been saying since she was three years old. Despite her young age, Sasha has felt like a girl for many years. This heartbreaking documentary follows the seven-year-old's daily life and her family's ongoing struggle to come to terms with her difference.

VICKY SHAHJEHAN

Vicky Shahjehan is a trans/androgynous/non-binary and self taught artist from Colombo’s Slave Island neighborhood. She is known for her work with henna and uses this medium as a form of archiving stories as well focusing on issues around feminism, gender and freedom. Together with the artist Firi Rahman, she is co-running the community art project #wearefromhere in the diverse community of Slave Island, a movement of breaking the stigma and celebrating the people living there. She collaborated with The Many Headed Hydra for Colomboscope 2019, the exhibition Is It Possible to Live Outside of Language in Karachi and was a resident of the Houseof Kal Colombo in Summer 2021 and one of the ambassadors of fearless collective 2022.

ANGEL QUEENTUS

​Angel Queentus (b.1996. Jaffna, Northern Sri Lanka) is Founder-Director at the Jaffna Transgender Network, a trans-led LGBTQI+ organisation working to build sustainable community livelihoods in the region. In 2021, using British Council’s SRP grant, she kick-started a collaborative arts programme that engages queer/trans cultural production. 

BHOOMI HARENDRAN

Bhoomi Harendran is a transgender activist and Executive Director of the National Transgender Network. She has worked tirelessly to change the discourse to bring about acceptance and recognition for transgender individuals and individuals belonging to sexual minorities in Sri Lanka. She was the first trans-identifying actress to ever win a SAARC award in Asia and Sri Lanka, for her role in critically acclaimed film Frangipani while also receiving the ‘Kusalatha Sammanaya’ at the Sarasavi Film Awards 2018. Bhoomi Harendran was recently adjudged the Transgender Hero at the 2021 APCOM Heroes Award ceremony.