Imago beautifully weaves the story of Namrata, a teenage girl with vitiligo living in an Indian village. Through the life journey of Namrata, this Marathi (Indian regional language) film explores the psyche of people with Vitiligo as they hold back and remain reluctant to come out of their shells because they feel that they are not beautiful enough. This film attempts to break this misconception and stereotype.
Imago challenges the conventional norms of beauty set by our society through exploring our protagonist and the world surrounding her.
What’s in the name ‘Imago’?
The name of the film ‘Imago’ sounds weird, right?
In biology terminology, Imago refers to the developed and grown-up stage of a Caterpillar as it turns into a beautiful butterfly ready to start flying.
So, the word ‘Imago’ resembles the life story of the film’s main character, a shy and introvert teenage girl with vitiligo. Due to the social stigma surrounding vitiligo, she is struggling with self-doubt and remains inside her shell throughout the movie. How she reclaims her freedom and self-pride and starts breathing freely is beautifully narrated in the film.
It beautifully portrays the journey of this teenage girl, the way she comes out of her shell and turns into a beautiful butterfly.
So, the butterfly reference is used throughout the film to connect with the life journey of our protagonist.
About the film ‘Imago’
It’s not an art film or a documentary about vitiligo.
The film soulfully unfolds a range of Namrata’s emotions and expressions, from self-doubt and bullying to infatuation for her teacher, a free-spirited man who played an instrumental role in helping her coming out of her shell and getting comfortable with her appearance.
Not just the people with vitiligo, but their family members and friends will also relate to the events shown in the movie.
Namrata feels that she’s not worthy enough to fit into beauty standards set by the society. She is socially awkward and sometimes bullied by her classmates. She looks at the images of models and actresses in the newspapers and magazines with envy.
Seeing her classmates and friends, she also wishes to wear short sleeve clothes and apply beauty products but her poor body-image holds her back.
The people’s behavior and her own life experiences have made her believe that she looks different (in a negative sense) and she does not deserve to feel beautiful and attractive in real life, but only in her dreams.
Then the film depicts that despite of being overwhelmed by self-doubt and anxiety, Namrata is a young girl after all. So, out of the teenage infatuation, she falls for the newly joined young teacher who sees her from a different lens. He motivates her to take a break from getting consumed by vitiligo related negative emotions and feel ‘normal’ and beautiful.
He inspires Namrata to get rid of the burden of vitiligo and set free to live life on her own terms.
Gradually, she gathers courage to do all the ‘girl things’ that she always wanted to do like wearing her favorite short sleeve dresses, applying makeup, feel attractive, get noticed and off course smile more.
A welcome step towards vitiligo normalization and awareness
The film gives the message that every individual is beautiful in own way and it’s our flaws that make us unique and beautiful. People with vitiligo have every right to feel normal and beautiful.
It gives a new vision of equality and makes the society aware of the hardships people with vitiligo go through in their daily lives.
We the humans find the butterflies so beautiful as they are full of colors, and so diverse in shapes and forms. But when it comes to our fellow humans, we have beauty stereotypes and unfortunately, we differentiate and discriminate on the basis of appearance or skin color. Let’s make this world a more embracing place with breathing space for everyone to feel beautiful and desirable.
What makes ‘Imago’ special?
The Indian cinema is an evolving one, still not accommodating enough to sensitive issues such as mental health and homosexuality. But, it has talked about vitiligo more prominently than any other cinema in the world.
Before Imago, another Indian (Hindi language) commercial movie ‘Kuch Bheege Alfaaz’ has a young woman with vitiligo as protagonist. However, the female actor (Geetanjali Thapa) who played the protagonist’s role is not dealing with vitiligo in the real life.
Imago takes one step further in this representation by casting its lead as someone (Aishwarya Ghaydar) who is actually living with the condition.
To ensure the movie reflects an honest account of a young girl’s life with vitiligo, the debutant director duo Karan Chavan and Vikram Patil decided to rope in someone having this condition. It was not easy because most of the young women with vitiligo were hesitant and denied the offer. Finally, Aishwarya was selected for the lead role and she has given a soulful performance for sure.
Initially, I was hesitant as I have had no previous experience. But after reading the script, I felt connected to the character and decided to go ahead with it. Also, I attended workshops to prepare for the role.
What’s the inspiration behind this movie?
In college, one of the friends of Vikram Patil would always shy away from clicking photos as she was self conscious and shy due to vitiligo. So, they choose this subject for their debut project.
Their preparation involved detailed discussions with doctors and people with Vitiligo to gain a much wider perspective as they wanted to show a realistic depiction on-screen of the people living with the condition.
This beautifully written and presented feature elaborates the struggles of living with vitiligo, but does not vilify vitiligo or present it in a negative light. Rather, it shows the charm and beauty of vitiligo and spread the message that everyone is equally beautiful no matter how different they are.
‘Imago’ was premiered on 26th October 2018 in the 20th Mumbai International Film Festival and received encouraging reception.
Being a small budget Marathi film with an ‘unusual’ subject, theatrical release was a challenge for the makers. So it was released on Netflix and was received well by the audience.
The upside of being released through an OTT platform was that it helps reaching a much wider global audience and showcasing the daily struggles along with the psyche of one living with Vitiligo.
Such a skillfully made film has been nominated for various awards and screenings. Some of them are enlisted below:
- Nominated for Best film on gender equality in Mumbai International Film Festival, 2018
- Winner of Best Film Public Choice, Best Director and Best Actress awards at the Kolhapur International Film Festival, 2019
- Official selection for NFDC Film Bazaar International Film Festival of India, Goa 2018
- Official selection for Chicago South Asian Film Festival, 2019.
Meet all the Kings and Queens with Skin Conditions
Get access to the life stories of amazing people with skin conditions
Thank you for joining the community.
Something went wrong.
