Oct 03, 2026 3:00pm IST
‘Elephants in the Fog’ Review: A Moving Transgender Drama About Love and Chosen Family
There have been a number of daring and highly acclaimed South Asian features with transgender protagonists on the festival circuit in recent years. These include Saim Sadiq’s Joyland (Oscar shortlist for Best International Feature 2023, won Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard Jury Prize, was Pakistan’s Oscar entry), and three films that were at the Toronto International Film Festival TIFF 2026—Abinash Bikram Shah’s “Elephants in the Fog” (Nepal; Jury Prize, Un Certain Regard, Cannes Film Festival; Nepal’s Oscar entry 2026), Rahul Roye’s Aman (TIFF Short Cuts) and another feature from India at TIFF 2026, that cannot be named because the context would be a spoiler.
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Abinash Bikram Shah’s “Elephants in the Fog” (Tiniharu, Them, Nepali), his debut feature, is a very moving and accomplished film. Pirati, a trans woman, must choose between her lover and her chosen family, the kinnar /transgender community. Shah has directed many shorts, including Lori (Melancholy of my Mother’s Lullabies; Special Distinction, Short Film, Cannes Film Festival, 2022). Shah is also a writer/co-writer for Nepal’s top directors, including Deepak Rauniyar’s Highway (Berlin), Min Bahadur Bham’s Black Hen (Venice) and Shambhala (the first South Asian film in Berlinale Competition in 30 years, in 2024, was Nepali, not Indian).
At its heart, “Elephants in the Fog” asks: who is real family—biological or chosen? Is a mother allowed to pursue her own desires, beyond family responsibilities? Pirati (Puspa Thing Lama) dreams of a future with her musician lover, but is troubled because, as a kinnar community matriarch, she has taken a vow of celibacy. When Apsara, one of her adopted kinnar ‘daughters,’ goes missing, she moves heaven and earth to find her, resulting in a mystical climax that will long linger in your heart. Along with organically woven thriller, romance, song and dance elements, Shah adds metaphorical layers, including how society has a love-hate relationship with both trans people and wild elephants, both of whom live on the fringes of our society and are both worshipped for blessings, feared and reviled, especially when they go on the rampage.
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Shah’s direction and screenplay are masterly and nuanced and explore trans lives—their love affairs, rituals, music and politics; how they are treated by the police, hospitals, and the heterosexual majority. Puspa Thing Lama is marvelous and convincing as Pirati—she’s a real-life trans woman, kinnar activist, and first-time actress — and so are the ensemble cast, including Aliz Ghimire as Apsara and Aashant Sharma as Pirati’s lover.
Noé Bach’s cinematography is superbly evocative; editors Andrew Bird and Paris J. Ludwig integrate many subplots well. The music by Frederic Alvarez and sound by Pedro Sá Earp and others elevate the film. Resourceful producer Anup Poudel engineers an amazing international coproduction between his Underground Talkies Nepal, Jayantii Creations (Nepal), Les Valseurs (France), Die Gesellschaft DGS, and Zischlermann Filmproduktion (Germany), Storm Films (Norway) and Enquadramento Produções and Bubbles Project (Brazil), with Best Friend Forever as the international sales agent. The women crew includes producers Tatiana Leite, Verona Meier, Kumudini Gurung Shrestha, and production designer Mausam Aggrawal. The film was released in Nepali theatres within four months of its Cannes world premiere, a rare feat for a film acclaimed at festivals. We hope audiences worldwide can soon watch this film.
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