International Toilet Fest flush with creativity, conversation 

CHENNAI: Our relationship with toilets, simply put, is hard. Our relationship with public toilets, harder still. We find euphemisms for wanting to urinate or defecate.

These conversations make us uncomfortable, almost as much as the thought of walking into a public toilet.

The International Toilet Festival, organised by WashLab in collaboration with Recycle Bin and the Greater Chennai Corporation, attempts to ease that discomfort.

The festival hosted events across Chennai, including a toilet walk, designer camps, and a short film competition. Short films under a minute, based on the theme Once Upon A Loo, were invited from across the country. The winners were announced this Monday, following the screening of the 34 shortlisted films. The judging panel included poet Yugabharathi, and filmmakers Krithiga Udhayanidhi and Thiagarajan Kumararaja.

The festival’s goal is to bridge the gap between governance, the public, and public toilets. “Our initiative is to understand public toilets better,” says Shebin, WashLab’s director. As an extension of that effort, the film competition aimed to understand how people perceive the loo. The organisers received 750 entries from Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and other parts of the country. “While we were sceptical at first, we’ve received films that thoughtfully contextualise toilets and ourselves,” Shebin adds.

From reimagining the people who clean toilets as superheroes to a rom-com between two commodes, the films explore everything toilet-related. P, directed by Surya Prakash PT, looks at what happens when your “toilet membership” expires during an emergency nature’s call. “If it’s for the public, why doesn’t the public clean it?” asks Appa, directed by GSS Yaghavan.

Out of the 34 shortlisted films, the top three received cash awards. Sandatze, directed by Pranathi Sompalle, won the first prize and a cash award of Rs one lakh. “The thought was, what happens after you flush?” says Pranathi. “There are two toilet stories: one, we’re sold expensive toilets for an ‘experience’; the other is the reality that manual scavenging still exists, despite being banned. It remains a caste-based ‘profession’,” she adds.

The first and second runner-ups were Veliki, directed by Anand MJ, and Mural by Amar Keerthi. Veliki examines the absurdity of building rockets while struggling to develop functional public toilets. Mural portrays the male public toilet as a site of harassment for women. Director Amar Keerthi, a commercial filmmaker, hopes to expand Mural into a feature. The winners will also get a chance to pitch their ideas to a leading production house.

The issue of public toilets isn’t just architectural, it’s cultural. Everyone has to play a role in fixing it. WashLab plans to screen the short films across the city on minimal screens. “We’ll screen 200 short films in a theatre. Every screening will leave you with a new perspective on the loo,” says Shebin.