At the KASHISH Mumbai International Queer Film Festival, 2022, Shailaja Padindala's Kannada-language film Naanu Ladies won the best narrative feature and Pedro Peira's English and Spanish-language film LA QueenCianera won the best documentary feature.
Pradipta Ray's Gujarati-language short Muhafiz and Nemil Shah's Gujarati-language short Dal Bhat received the best Indian narrative short and Riyad Wadia Award for best young Indian filmmaker, respectively. Ray and Ashutosh Pathak won the best screenplay for Muhafiz. Kashish 2022 screened 184 LGBTQIA+ films from 53 countries, including 30 from India.
Winners Of Kashish Queer Film Festival
Director Shailaja Padindala said, “Naanu Ladies is a film attempting to identify cis-het culture weaves itself into the queerness of everyday life. The film attempts to re-understand the uses of reproductive sciences for a queer lifestyle. I look forward to making more queer content with queer folks, across as many regional languages as possible. My next film is going to be a Tamil feature, in which queerness is also going to be a part of the story, of a bigger picture.”
Warsha and Beirut Dreams in Color from Lebanon; The Third Solar Term from China; The Fish With One Sleeve from Japan; and special mentions for Coming To You from South Korea and Her Canvas and Kinaara from India were among the other Asian films to win accolades.
The festival director Sridhar Rangayan said, “As South Asia’s biggest LGBTQ+ film festival, we are thrilled by so many Asian films winning awards at this year’s festival. Indian LGBTQ+ cinema has truly come of age, and can stand up against any international films.”
Suggested Reading: Five Regional Films Which Got LGBTQIA+ Representation Right
From June 1 to 5, the festival took place at Mumbai's Liberty Cinema and the Alliance Française de Bombay, as well as online from June 3 to 14. Between April 22 and 25, 2010, the KASHISH Mumbai International Queer Film Festival was hosted in two locations in Mumbai: one in the city and one in the suburbs. Feature films, short films, documentaries, and experimental films featuring gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender characters and stories were exhibited. The videos looked at the various realities, complexity, joys, and tragedies that come with being a queer person around the world. They also engaged and entertained audiences while celebrating, reclaiming, and explaining LGBTQ identities. To effect social change, the film festival brought together the audience, the films, and the filmmakers.
Feature Image Credit: Variety.
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