Beauty and Brains

Director: Catherine Donaldson
Release Year: 2010

Would you enter a beauty pageant if it meant you might finally be safe? Would you put on makeup and a sash not for glamour or fame, but to protect yourself from sexual abuse, police brutality, and being banished by your own family? In Catherine Donaldson’s poignant and courageous documentary Beauty and Brains, this is exactly the question posed, and lived, by Nepal’s third-gender community. In a society where third-gender individuals are expected to choose between blessing newlyweds, begging in the streets, or selling their bodies to survive, the idea of participating in a beauty contest may sound like an indulgence. But Beauty and Brains reveals something far more radical: a community reclaiming their humanity and dignity through performance, activism, and visibility.

Other Nature

Director: Nani Sahra Walker
Release Year: 2010

Nani Sahra Walker’s Other Nature is a powerful and poignant documentary that sheds light on one of the most groundbreaking legal and cultural shifts in modern history. The film chronicles the remarkable journey of third-gender rights in Nepal, focusing on the activism and personal stories of individuals who identify outside the traditional male-female gender binary. Central to the narrative is Bhumika Shrestha, a courageous third-gender activist and actress whose life and work have had a profound impact on the LGBTQ+ rights movement in Nepal. At the heart of Other Nature is Nepal's historic Supreme Court ruling in 2008, which made the country the first in the world to grant legal recognition to the third gender, a monumental decision that would change the lives of countless individuals. Through personal interviews, grassroots activism, and a nuanced examination of the social and political landscape, Other Nature illuminates both the triumphs and struggles of third-gender people, particularly through the eyes of Bhumika Shrestha.