While in Delhi, the Union Government made it clear that it has “no stand” on the topic of decriminalising homosexuality, even as the Additional Solicitor-General described gay sex as “immoral” in the Supreme Court, in Bangalore, members, friends and activists of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community met, socialised and participated in a festival that celebrated their varied identities.
The Bangalore Queer Film Festival, in its fourth edition, drew to a close here on Sunday. The three-day event saw students, activists and film aficionados spending their days, and long evenings, at the Alliance Française de Bangalore, which has played host to the festival for years now.
Packed halls
Far from its humble, informal beginnings in 2003, when it was “more of a closeted affair”, today, the festival is a vibrant and well-attended event. On Sunday afternoon, the hall was packed, and so was the venue.
The festival, as Vinay Chandra, activist and a member of the organising committee puts it, is as much about the films that are screened as about the “conversations and friendships”. “Yes, when we started in 2003, borrowing films from other film festivals, people were still uncomfortable being seen at these events. Now, things have certainly changed,” he says.
A lot of this change, of course, has to do with the debates around the issue post the Delhi High Court ruling in 2009, which moved to decriminalise gay sex. Pride parades, media coverage and increasing awareness have, to some extent, mainstreamed these debates.
‘Missing' debates?
Yet, some in the audience felt that the festival did not provide much space for discussion and debate, unlike previous editions of the event. Says Kapilan, a postgraduate film student from Mumbai, “The collection of films, particularly those showcased by indie filmmakers was interesting. But the debates are missing. For instance, could we not have had a short discussion on the Union Government's refusal to come out with a simple statement on whether or not gay sex was immoral?” Previous editions did have important panel discussions, he added.
Nitya Vasudevan, researcher and member of the organising committee, says that while the panel discussions scheduled were indeed focussed on cinema, a lot of what happens at a film fest is “in fact, unscheduled”. These conversations and debates do happen among people, outside the halls, sometimes triggered by the content of what they're watching, she explains.
Wide selection
About the film fest, Ms. Vasudevan explains the focus this time was on expanding the ambit of what was offered. “That is, to locate films from what we call the ‘non-West'. We have films from Brazil, many from Southeast Asia, Israel and so on. We also made conscious efforts to get more Indian language films too,” she said.
Besides 59 films from 16 countries, the festival featured a photo exhibition, dance performance and poetry readings.
The selection included romantic films, plots that dealt with the question of identity and liberation, comedies, horror and documentaries. So while films such as Madame X (Lucky Kuswandi's film on a transsexual superhero from Indonesia), Nao Faolo , Danco (a short experimental film on dance from Brazil) and Through the Window (romantic drama from Israel) gave audiences a peek into the world of international queer cinema, the festival also featured films made by filmmakers from Bangalore. As many as five films documenting the lived experiences of the LGBT community in the country made it to the list. Among them was All About our Familia , a film paying tribute to transgender rights activist and feminist, Famila, who died in 2004.
