His approach was anthropological but intimate. He let silence stretch in his interviews. He learned the difference between thirunangai (respectful term for transgender women) and slurs that other crews had unknowingly used. When Priya hesitantly explained how her family disowned her, then re-claimed her during the festival’s mythic reenactment of Aravan’s marriage, Christian didn’t cut away. He simply nodded, the Bolex’s soft whir the only sound.

“You don’t ask why we suffer,” Maya observed on the third day, as they shared tea from a clay cup. “Others only want the pain.”

That night, he began logging footage for his next project: a matrilineal fishing community in the Colombian Pacific, where grandmothers taught boys and girls alike to navigate by the moon. Another song. Another verse. The Bolex, as always, ready to learn.

He chose the laughter.

Months later, back in his cramped Berlin editing suite, Christian faced his most difficult cut. The Western funders wanted a “struggle narrative”—poverty, violence, redemption. But the rushes told a different story: Maya laughing as she taught a teenager the Kooththu dance; Priya framing a shot of two Aravani brides feeding each other sweets, their joy unscripted.

“I don’t explore culture and gender through film,” Christian said quietly. “I just hold the camera. They do the exploring. I just listen.”