At a press screening on Tuesday, May 14, 9 short films/documentaries from India, America, Cambodia, Australia and Spain were screened for the press. This was a glimpse of what ‘Kashish’ – the Mumbai International Queer Film Festival 2013 aims to cover this year.
Kashish opens doors for the fourth consecutive year on May 22nd, 2013 at Cinemax, Versova. The theme this year is “Towards Change”, and the country in focus this year is China. The festival aims at giving us a peak into the lives of LGBT people from countries where it is not only difficult to talk about LGBT issues, but also make films/documentaries on them. These include Pakistan, China, Serbia, Slovakia, and Iran to name a few. Of course, Kashish’s goal of providing a platform for young Indian LGBT films and filmmakers remains unchanged. This year at Kashish, the two Indian films not to be missed are Urmi by Jehangir Jani and …And The Unclaimed by Debalina.
Year after year, Kashish aims at providing LGBT people with a big screen experience of LGBT movies; something we do not see too often in India. Interestingly however, they have found that 32% of their audiences are non-LGBT people; which means that not only are people interested in the LGBT content, but also the quality of films being chosen. This year, out of over 300 entries, only 132 could be picked, from across 40 different countries.
Even though the festival spans over 4 days, none of the movies will be screened twice. Director of Kashish, Mr. Sridhar Rangayan hopes that in the years to come, more screens can be dedicated to Kashish so that some films can have multiple screening for the benefit of audience members who may have scheduling conflicts.
Kashish is open from May 22, 2013 till May 26, 2013.
Cinemax, Versova: from May 23 till May 26, from 10:00 AM onwards.
Alliance Francaise De Bombay: from May 23 till May 25, from 10:00 AM onwards.
And here is the film schedule :