Over the past decade and more, Chennai has created a space for LGBT culture — film festivals, workshops, literary events… but it was limited.
There still exist huge misconceptions about the community and awareness is appalling. Many parents take children who identify as another gender to psychiatrists, hoping to “cure them of the disease”.
The Chennai International Queer Film Festival (CIQFF) 2016 hopes to do its bit to sensitise and raise awareness about the community and the issues it faces; the lives, loves and longings of LGBTs, and open people’s minds to their reality, says L. Ramakrishnan, a volunteer with the team curating the festival.
Of the 80 films received, the committee has chosen 26 films from eight countries, ranging in duration from three minutes to a feature-length 120 minutes.
“The selection was not just based on the finesse of production, but also on the issues discussed. We have films such as Sridhar Rangayan’s National Award-winning Breaking Free, shot over seven years, which highlights the impact and implications of Section 377 of the IPC on the LGBTQ community and Chennai-based Sairam Biswas’s It Adhu But Aanaal. Then there’s a film from the U.S. about an elderly couple who have been together for 40 years…”
The three-day CIQFF has been put together by a collection of Chennai-based collectives and NGOs working on gender and sexuality, in partnership with Goethe-Institut Chennai.
The films include shorts, documentaries and feature-length films. They will chronicle the global struggle for the rights of members of the LGBT community. The films will also showcase the universality of LGBT lives, across the world.
The principal organisers are Orinam, which has been working since 2003 to end discrimination and provide social and support spaces for the LGBTQI communities in Chennai, and several community groups and NGOs, including Nirangal, RIOV, SAATHII, and East-West Center for Counselling.
Among the films being screened are Hansal Mehta’s acclaimed Aligarh, a depiction of the life of Prof. Siras, who succumbed to the homophobia at the university where he was teaching. Shorts from Germany’s Berlinale and Dresden film festivals will also be screened.
This year, the festival partners with British Council to present a selection of shorts from fiveFilms4freedom, the world’s first global, digital LGBT film festival. This is a selection of audience favourites from BFI Flare and London’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Film Festival.
Reel Desires will also feature performances by members of the community — Ponni, Anjali and Taejha Singh — and a panel discussion on July 30 on Ending Gender and Sexuality-based Violence.
It will explore the links between violence against women, and violence against members of the LGBTI communities, and come up with strategies to prevent and respond to violence. The panellists include Sankari G., Ragamalika Karthikeyan and Poongkhulali Balasubramaniam.
This is the fourth time the Goethe-Institut is collaborating with the festival, and Helmut Schippert, director, says that all its six institutes in India support such festivals. “Like any other social pop culture, this festival is an important movement. And, we offer a platform for those seeking equality. It was a natural collaboration,” he says, adding: “I also believe that we offer a safe, gender-neutral space that is accessible to all and does not discriminate.”
