“Holy Curse,” a new short from the U.S.-based Indian filmmaker Snigdha Kapoor, is punctuated by two instances of roadside urination. “I’ve done that so many times,” Kapoor told me, laughing, on a Zoom call from her home in Jersey City. In the film, one culprit is Radha, an androgynous preteen suffering through the gender codifications of early puberty. Radha and their parents, who live in America, are visiting relatives in India, and the adults view Radha’s queerness as an ancestral “curse” that must be ceremonially lifted. The visual language of the film—marked by claustrophobic shots, handheld closeups, and jump cuts—mirrors Radha’s agitation.

In a simpler story, the uncle who arranges a ritual to cleanse Radha would be the villain. But Kapoor’s fable reflects the knowledge that repress

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