Indian-Canadian filmmaker Deepa Mehta had known Sirat Taneja for four years before they embarked on a journey to make a film about her dual life as a transgender woman in India.

The resulting documentary is I Am Sirat, which made its streaming debut on CBC Gem on March 3. The Punjabi-language film is a collaboration between Mehta and Taneja, produced by David Hamilton and shot completely on smartphones.

The doc follows Taneja’s life in New Delhi, where she has a network of supportive friends both in and out of the city’s queer community, and a growing presence on Instagram, where she lip-syncs and creates videos of pop songs about empowerment and sexuality. But, at home, Taneja has to pretend to be a dutiful son of a mother who can’t accept the idea of a trans daughter.

Mehta, best known for her award-winning Elements trilogy, tells Playback Daily that shooting on a smartphone meant that it was “so much easier to control” the filmmaking process. “She’s in control of her cell phone,” says Mehta, adding that they experienced no challenges with the filming format. “It’s about freedom.”

Hamilton said via email that Mehta and Taneja first met during the making of the 2019 Netflix series Leila, which Mehta co-directed. Then, in 2022, Taneja reached out to Mehta to see if she would be interested in making a documentary on her life.

Mehta says the process was a learning experience for both her and Taneja, adding that she is in awe of Taneja’s spirit and her journey in making the film. Taneja, speaking in a joint interview with Mehta, notes that her ability to be optimistic and hopeful comes from within.

“We decided that it might be useful to shoot some preliminary footage of Sirat as a promotional device to attract potential financial or distribution partners,” said Hamilton. “I was never involved in the shoot, as my presence would have been a distraction which could have disrupted the intimacy of the storytelling and thus potentially the authenticity of Sirat’s journey.”

“The efficacy of this approach was confirmed later when I finally met an unusually nervous Sirat and found that I was the first white male she had ever had a full conversation with,” he added.

I Am Sirat was produced on a small budget, according to Mehta, who adds that she and Hamilton personally provided $70,000 to help complete the film. She says CBC was the sole funder for the documentary via the CBC Docs POV program.

“We showed the test footage to CBC and fortunately Michelle McCree, the executive in charge of production for CBC Docs, became enthusiastic about the potential for the film and became a stalwart partner throughout the balance of the story formation and the production,” said Hamilton, adding that McCree was “reliable creative barometer for Deepa when choices in either content or approach were being considered.”

“For [McCree], it was about the universal story, and an important one, she felt,” says Mehta.

Hamilton said the team was “inundated with requests from other festivals to submit our film” following the world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, which led to I Am Sirat being selected to compete at last year’s BFI London Film Festival.

“We have also been approached by numerous sales agents and distributors who have either seen or heard of the film, and we are certain that the film will see broader distribution throughout the globe,” he added.