‘Elephants in the Fog’ is a complex portrait of trans belonging in Nepal

'Elephants in the Fog' is a complex portrait of trans belonging in Nepal Poulomi Das 4 min read25 Sep 2026, 05: 30 PM IST.

Key points

• Abinash Bikram Shah's 'Elephants in the Fog' explores the fragile reality behind Nepal's progressive transgender rights record.
• This is a Mint Premium article gifted to you.
• On paper, Nepal has been a trailblazer on transgender rights.

What happened

This is a Mint Premium article gifted to you. Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.

On paper, Nepal has been a trailblazer on transgender rights. After a 2007 Supreme Court ruling, it was the first country to let citizens register their gender by "self feeling". In 2011, it ran the first national census to count three genders. And in 2023, it became the site of South Asia's first registered same-sex marriage between a trans woman and a gay man, created feasible in part by the same third-gender recognition the country had spent over a decade building. Elephants in the Fog, Nepalese filmmaker Abinash Bikram Shah's debut feature, sidesteps that record entirely, settling instead on a Kinnar community that has every legal right to exist and still has to earn, daily, its right to belong.

The bottom line

For now, 'Elephants in the Fog' is a complex portrait of trans belonging in remains the part of the story worth watching, and further updates are likely as more details are confirmed.