THE BANGALORE 10th QUEER FILM Anniversary FESTIVAL #BQFF2019
I'm crying cuz I love you
We’ve turned ten! And we didn’t make it so far on our own.
One of the several perks of being a volunteer-run, community- funded event has been that friends from the community and of the community have come in, rolled up their sleeves, hitched up their hemlines and taken charge over the many years.
From the first public film festival called ‘Bangalored’, held with our signature spread of mattresses at the Attakkalari Studios and helmed by the good folks of Pedestrian Pictures, Swabhava’s Vinay Chandran (who remains the longest- running festival director), Sangama, and the funding prowess of Bangalore’s former party starter Abhishek Agarwal, to the smaller festivals organised at a screening room in the Sona Towers, to its present avatar as the Bangalore Queer Film Festival – this festival has become its own beauty, its own beast. Over this decade-long journey, we’ve been held and nurtured by support groups like Good As You, We’re Here And Queer and All Sorts of Queers; individuals like Karthik Vaidyanathan, Nanju Reddy and Siddharth Narrain (who were part of the organising team in the early editions) and organisations like the Alliance Française de Bangalore and Goethe Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan.
A question that everyone involved with the festival asks at its end: How did we make this happen again? And while we’ve come up with lots of lies to drive out these doubts, in truth: we have no real idea. Nearly five months before the date of the festival, someone (it has never ever been the same person) sends out a message: When are we doing our first meeting for next year’s BQFF? And from then on, it is just a matter of moving our lives and work schedules around to make it happen – because it will happen either way. This festival is a drama queen that needs her audience. And we’re all just her makeup and wigs department.
But even before this questions bleeps onto our phone screens from other members of the organising team, it is you – our audience – who always ask: BQFF is happening right? (Sometimes just a week after one has gone by.) And I think it is the need to always answer in the affirmative that keeps this festival going. The festival has always been bigger than the people who run it (and it will always be), it has been about you and you alone – our audience. So, we’d like to say – we love you! Thanks for coming each and every year, for being patient with our shortcomings, for encouraging our flights of fancy and for allowing us to show you films. We’ve been super thrilled to have you with us. And want to see more of you in the years to come.
Now, flip through the brochure and enjoy the programme we’ve put together for you at the tenth edition of the Bangalore Queer Film Festival over the next four days! Happy viewing, lovelies, cuties and hensems! And hey, eat a slice of cake for us! Contents
7 Schedule
17 Feature Films
31 Documentaries
43 Short Documentaries
55 Institut Française
61 Public Service Broadcasting Trust (PSBT) –'Engaging with Sexualities'
71 Shorts
119 Holding You Close: The BQFF Art Exhibition
125 Panels
129 Performances
134 Ten Years of Gratitude
140 Film Contacts
Schedule Thursday, August 1 Alliance Française de Bangalore
10 : 30 AM Ti Gars (One of the Guys) 2018 | Doris Buttignol France/Canada | 1 hr 32 min | French
12 : 03 PM [ MORNING BREAK ]
12 : 10 PM Megg - The Margin who Migrate to the Center 2018 | Larissa Nepomuceno and Eduardo Sanches Brazil | 15 min | Portugese
12 : 25 PM Lupah Sug 2018 | Rhadem Camlian Morados Philippines | 29 min | Filipino
12 : 55 PM Ishq, Dosti and All That 2018 | Srishti Lakhera, Rituparna Borah, Ritambhara Mehta, and Bhamati Sivapalan India | 19 min
1 : 15 PM [ LUNCH ]
2 : 00 PM I’m Moshanty. Do You Love Me? 2018 | Tim Wolff Papua New Guinea | 1 hr 12 min | English
3 : 12 PM Breaking Out! 2018 | Heshvanth Gurukul India | 25 min | Hindi
3 : 37 PM Kiko 2018 | Jojo Driz Philippines | 2018 | 20 min | Filipino
3 : 58 PM Lalla 2018 | José Salazar France | 2018 | 13 min | French
4 : 11 PM MMF 2017 | Leonard Garner Germany | 10 min | German/English 9
4 : 22 PM I’m Not There 2018 | Ajita Banerjie India | 12 min | English/Hindi
4 : 35 PM Un Homme Mon Fils 2017 | Florent Gouëlou France | 34 min | French
5 : 10 PM [ EVENING BREAK ]
5 : 20 PM 2015 2018 | Eluna R. Cepeda Philippines | 14 min | Filipino
5 : 34 PM Breathe 2018 | Anushka Shivdasani Rovshen and Madhuri Mohindar India | 24 min | English/Hindi
5 : 56 PM Only What You Need to Know About Me 2018 | Maria Augusta V. Nunes Brazil | 15 min | Portugese
6 : 11 PM A Safe Person to Talk to 2018 | Navdeep Sharma India | 19 min | English/Hindi
6 : 40 PM La sociologue et l’ourson 2016 | Mathias Théry and Etienne Chaillou France | 1 hr 18 min | French
8 : 00 PM Cinderella 2018 | Mehdi Aghajani Iran | 25 min | Persian
8 : 30 PM A Woman Is A Woman 2018 | Maisy Goosy Suen Hong Kong | 1 hr 33 min | Cantonese & some English Friday, August 2 Alliance Française de Bangalore
10 : 00 AM No Box For Me. An Intersex Story 2018 | Floriane Devigne France | 58 min | French
11 : 00 AM [ MORNING BREAK ]
11 : 15 AM Flora 2018 | Chaerin Im USA | 4 min | English
11 : 20 AM Mort-Bois, a young Jean Genet 2018 | Frédéric Labonde and Frédéric Bonnet France | 29 min | French
11 : 49 AM Zara Nazar Utha Ke Dekho 2018 | Anindya Shankar Das India | 24 min | English/Hindi/Punjabi/Kannada/Bengali
12 : 13 PM Falling 2016 | Tang Kang Sheng Singapore | 24 min | English
12 : 37 PM Framing Agnes 2018 | Chase Joynt Canada and USA | 19 min | English
12 : 57 PM Splendid Case of Doubt 2018 | Daniel Moshel Austria | 4 min | No dialogue
1 : 00 PM [ LUNCH ]
2 : 00 PM Breakup in 9 Scenes 2018 | Leil Zahra Mortada Lebanon | 15 min | English
2 : 15 PM Nján Sánjo (I’m Sánjo) 2019 | Jijo Kuriakose India | 15 min | Malayalam
2 : 30 PM Reality Fragment 160921 2018 | Qigemu (Jasmine Lin + April Lin) UK/USA/Sweden | 14 min | English/Mandarin 11
2 : 45 PM La Flaca (The Bony Lady) 2018 | Thiago Zanato and Adriana Barbosa USA, Brazil and Mexico | 20 min | Spanish
3 : 05 PM Came The Wave 2018 | Benjamin Busnel France | 20 mins | French
3 : 25 PM La Religiosa 2018 | Andrea Armentano and Sofía Torre Argentina | 22 min | Spanish
3 : 47 PM Finding Prayers 2019 | Nilay Samiran Nandi India | 21 min | Bengali
4 : 08 PM Our Stories Our Journeys 2018 | Christy Raj India | 11 min | Kannada/Tamil/Telugu/Malayalam
4 : 20 PM Eli - A Portrait 2018 | Lumen Nguyen Germany | 7 min | German
4 : 30 PM [ EVENING BREAK ]
4 : 40 PM Si Chedeng at si Apple (Chedeng and Apple) 2017 | Rae Red and Fatrick Tabada Philippines | 1 hr 27 min | Filipino
6 : 20 PM PERFORMANCE : Nanna Dhvani with Revathi
7 : 00 PM Yeh Freedom Life / This Freedom Life 2018 | Priya Sen India | 1 hr 10 min | Hindi
8 : 20 PM Nocturama 2016 | Bertrand Bonello France/Germany | 2 hr 10 min | French Saturday, August 3 Goethe Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan
10 : 34 AM Katha Vachak 2019 | Deepak Srinivasan India | 22 min | English/Hindi/Kannada
10 : 57 AM Please Mind The Gap 2018 | Mitali Trivedi and Gagandeep Singh India | 20 min | Hindi
11 : 05 AM [ MORNING BREAK ]
11 : 20 AM Snail 2017 | Mohammad Towrivarian Iran | 11 min | Kurdish and Persian
11 : 31 AM Transfinite 2018 | Neelu Bhuman US/UK/India | 1 hr 10 min | English
12 : 42 PM Reinaldo’s Motifs 2018 | Ricardo Vieira Lisboa Portugal | 9 min | Silent
12 : 52 PM Estigma 2018 | David Velduque Spain | 14 min | Spanish
1 : 06 PM [ LUNCH ]
2 : 17 PM Languages 2019 | Debadrita Bose India | 30 min | Bengali
2 : 47 PM Miss Man [International Premiere] 2019 | Tathagata Ghosh India | 25 min | Bengali
3 : 12 PM Naach Bhikhari Naach 2019 | Shilpi Gulati and Jainendra Dost India | 1 hr 12 min | Bhojpuri 13
4 : 25 PM Art Inaugration
5 : 00 PM Song Lang 2018 | Leon Le Vietnam | 1 hr 41 min | Vietnamese
6 : 50 PM Film Panel i : Language of Films
7 : 35 PM Dante vs Mohammed Ali 2018 | Marc Wagenaar The Netherlands | 28 min | Dutch
8 : 04 PM Selma After The Rain 2018 | Loli Menezes Brazil | 12 min | Portugese
8 : 16 PM La Primavera Trans 2018 | Juan David Cortés Hernández Colombia | 25 min
9 : 00 PM El Silencio Es Un Cuerpo Que Cae (Silence is a Falling Body) 2017 | Agustina Comedi Argentina | 1 hr 15 min | Spanish Sunday, August 4 Goethe Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan
10 : 20 AM Birthday 2018 | Shine Louise Houston USA | 7 min | English
10 : 27 AM May 2018 | Harold Antony Paulson India | 14 min | Malayalam
10 : 41 AM Things Break In 2017 | Tess Harrison USA | 7 min | English
10 : 48 PM Birds of Paradise 2018 | Rahul Sudha Mahesh India | 10 min | Malayalam
11 : 00 AM Film Panel ii : How to Make a Queer Image
12 : 10 PM Tin Satyi ... (In Fact ...) 2018 | Debalina India | 51 min | Bengali
1 : 02 PM [ LUNCH ]
2 : 00 PM Mud Mud Ke Na Dekh 2019 | Mujeer Pasha and Veena Kulkarni India | 22 min | Hinglish
2 : 21 PM Langit Budak Biru 2018 | Lim Kean Hian Malaysia | 23 min | Malay
2 : 44 PM The Housemaids 2018 | Asawari Jagushte India | 23 min | English
3 : 07 PM Hands and Wings 2018 | Sungbin Byun South Korea | 18 min | Korean 15
3 : 25 PM An Abstract 2019 | Manoj Thorat India | 20 min | English
3 : 45 PM [ BREAK ]
4 : 00 PM Udalaazham 2018 | Unnikrishnan Avala India | 1 hr 59 min | Malayalam
6 : 10 PM Poetry Reading
7 : 10 PM U Ushacha (U for Usha) 2019 | Rohan Parashuram Kanawade India | 22 min | Marathi
7 : 32 PM Lack 2018 | Ramin Farzaneh and Parisa Sedaei-Azar Iran | 22 min | Azerbaijani
7 : 55 PM Night Watch [International Premiere] 2018 | João Victor Borges Brazil | 23 min | Portugese
8 : 18 PM El niño que quería volar 2018 | Jorge Muriel Spain | 20 min | Spanish
8 : 38 PM Pashi 2017 | Siddharth Chauhan India | 32 min | Pahari
9 : 15 PM Meili 2018 | Zhou Zhou Taiwan, China | 1 hr 29 min | Chinese
Feature Films Thursday • 8:30 pm feature films 18 Thursday • 8:30 pm feature films 19
A Woman Is A Woman Is A Woman features the story of two trans women Sung Chi Yu and Chiu Ling Fung. Sung Chi A Woman Yu, after her surgery, creates a new Hong Kong | 2018 | 1 hr 33 min | life with a man and his daughter, Cantonese & some English choosing to not reveal herself as a trans woman. Everything is fine till her husband accidentally finds out. Chiu Ling Fung has always known she is different. Raised by a religious, conservative family, she is constantly told to man-up. At the age of 16, she starts to explore the notion of love and panics when she can only dream as a girl.
Director: Maisy Goosy Suen
Maisy Goosy Suen is a graduate of the Baptist University majoring in Film and Media Art and runs a video company called Feedthedog Production. She has directed six short films. A Woman is a Woman is her first feature. Friday • 4:40 pm feature films 20 Friday • 4:40 pm feature films 21
Si Chedeng In the wake of her husband’s death, Chedeng, 66, decides to come out of the closet. Her best friend Apple, at si Apple 63, beheads her live-in partner in a fit of rage. Bound by friendship, (Chedeng and the two elderly women set off on Apple) an adventure to find Chedeng’s ex-girlfriend. Two veteran Filipina Philippines | 2017 | 1 hr 27 min | beauty queen/actresses reunite to Filipino star in this black comedy about wacky women on the run.
Directors: Rae Red and Fatrick Tabada
Rae Red co-wrote and edited the 2016 thriller Birdshot. Fatrick Tabada co-wrote the 2016 comedy Jesus is Dead (2016). Chedeng & Apple is their directorial debut. Sunday • 9:15 pm feature films 22 Sunday • 9:15 pm feature films 23
Meili Meili is an ill-fated girl. She was abandoned by her parents and has Taiwan, China | 2018 | 1 hr 29 min | a complicated relationship with her Chinese sister and brother-in-law, who are constantly harassing her for money. In order to get away from it all, Meili wants to follow her girlfriend Li Wen to Shanghai. But Li Wen has other plans and leaves Meili behind. Meili meets new friends and gets new job opportunities, but more deceptions are to come.
Director: Zhou Zhou
Zhou Zhou has been a critic and editor for many years. He currently serves as a script consultant for Jiaying Film. Meili is Zhou Zhou’s first feature film, it got three nominations and one Award at the 12th Xining IFF (Best Performer). Saturday • 5:00 pm feature films 24 Saturday • 5:00 pm Ffeature E AT U R E Sfilms 25
Song Lang It’s 1980s in Saigon. Linh Phung is the star of a travelling opera Vietnam | 2018 | 1 hr 41 min | troupe deep in debt to a local loan Vietnamese shark. Dung Thunderbolt is the enforcer come to collect. After an unlikely friendship forms between the two, Linh Phung learns how a lived life is necessary for art and Dung follows art back to a life worth living.
Director: Leon Le
Writer/director/actor (2012) that he wrote Leon Le was born in and directed won critical Vietnam and moved with acclaim and screened his family to Southern at over 30 film festivals California at the age worldwide garnering of 13. After college he many awards. His next began a career in musical short film Talking to theatre after which he My Mother (2014) established himself as started its festival run in an actor/dancer/singer, 2015 and has also won including Broadway, film many awards. and TV as well as acting Song Lang, filmed roles in TV series and entirely in Vietnam, is feature films in Vietnam. his debut feature and His multiple award is earning significant winning short film Dawn awards worldwide. Saturday • 11:31 am feature films 26 Saturday • 11:31 am feature films 27
Transfinite Transfinite is a sci-fi omnibus feature film composed of seven US/UK/India | 2018 | 1 hr 10 min | stand-alone magical realistic short English stories where supernatural trans and queer people from various cultures use their powers to protect, love, teach, fight and thrive.
Director: Neelu Bhuman
Neelu is an independent FU377 (2014) has won filmmaker exploring best animation awards in social and political New Delhi, New York City themes as they play and Kolkata film festivals, out in close relations. while Love Letter/Prema Playfully evoking insights Lekha (2016) garnered into the workings of the best short in Graphic difference in intimacy, her Arts category at the Tunis films blend viewpoints Chouftouhonna Feminist ranging from race, gender, Festival. His films have sexuality, culture, class screened at over 70 and romance. Neelu’s film festivals worldwide. Sunday • 4:00 pm feature films 28 Sunday • 4:00 pm feature films 29
Udalaazham Gulikan, born and brought up as a boy in a tribal settlement, has the India | 2018 | 1 hr 59 min | body and the soul of a girl. He was Malayalam married in childhood to Maathi. Dark skinned, fragile, introverted and vulnerable, he struggles to balance his life working as a coolie in the city.
Director: Unnikrishnan Avala
Unnikrishnan Avala is a coveted awards given by documentary filmmaker, the Kerala State. He has author, teacher, and a authored three books, freelance journalist. His one of which was on the documentaries have life and works of the been well received in renowned Malayalam film festivals and won filmmaker Kamal.
Documentaries Thursday • 2:00 pm DOCUMENTARies 32
I'm I’m Moshanty. Do You Love Me? tells the story of the legendary South Pacific recording artist and Moshanty. transgender human rights activist Moses Moshanty Tau and the Do You transgender community of Papua Love Me? New Guinea.
Papua New Guinea | 2018 | 1 hr 12 min | English
Director: Tim Wolff
This is the second feature documentary for Tim Wolff, previously entering full distribution with his first doc feature The Sons of Tennessee Williams. Saturday • 8:16 pm DOCUMENTARies 33
La This blossoming spring roars through the streets that there won’t be a minute of silence but a lifetime Primavera of struggle. That their murdered ancestors, swept away by cement Trans and oblivion rise up like a wave of platform flowers, their bones are the Colombia | 2018 | 25 min possession of all those who survive discrimination, exclusion and transphobia. Dead under the hands of the world and on their own arms, today, like a silent monument, the root of this struggle blossoms in cement. Today something does happen, today they are everywhere, in all people; because they will be able to cut each and everyone of the flowers but they will not stop spring. Right now: transvestite spring, transsexual, trans-human, trans-powerful, insurrectionary, beautifully grotesque, wild, furious, one’s own, crazy, free. Trans spring.
Director: Juan David Cortes´ Hernandez´
He studied film direction commercial projects and production at the produced in Colombia Universidad Politécnico with his audiovisual Grancolombiano in brand Les Moustaches. Bogotá, Colombia. He is currently in pre- With 32 years of age production of his first he has written and feature documentary for worked in the area of the Trans Community photography, direction Network and writing his and editing in several first feature fiction. Saturday • 3:12 pm DOCUMENTARies 34 Saturday • 3:12 pm DOCUMENTARies 35
Naach Naach is a form of traditional folk theatre from Bihar, India. In this tradition, male artists often Bhikhari cross dress as women on stage and are referred to as ‘laundas’. Naach The most legendary name in this tradition is Bhikhari Thakur’s — India | 2019 | 1 hr 12 min | Bhojpuri an actor, playwright, and a social reformer popularly known as the ‘Shakespeare of Bhojpuri.’ The film follows the last four Naach performers to have worked him and creates a visual archive of their performance tradition.
Directors: Shilpi Gulati and Jainendra Dost
Shilpi Gulati is a Pakistan, Nepal, Korea, as a theatre practitioner filmmaker, researcher and UK and the United States. over the 18 years where theatre artist based out She is a doctoral student he has directed stage of New Delhi. Her work at Jawaharlal Nehru productions and acted documents the experience University and currently in numerous national and politics of regional researching contemporary and international theatre communities in India documentary practice presentations. Jainendra through oral history, in India. is also the Director ethnography, performance of Bhikhari Thakur and socially engaged art. Jainendra Dost is a Repertory Training and In 2015, her documentary doctoral scholar at Research Centre that Qissa-e Parsi: The Parsi the School of Arts and is working towards the Story won the National Aesthetics, Jawaharlal revival of folk theatre Film Award for the Nehru University, India. and Music in Bihar. In Best Ethnographic His work examines the past, his work has film in India and her the social and political been supported by India latest works, Lock and realities of Launda Nach Foundation for the Arts Key (2017) and Naach and Bhikhari Thakur’s and the Ministry of Bhikhari Naach (2018), folk theatre in Bihar. His Culture, Government have been screened theoretical inquiry closely of India. and awarded in India, ties into his experience Friday • 10:00 am DOCUMENTARies 36
No Box Often intersex is still dealt with as a pathology that must be treated and repaired. The film reflects For Me. An on the way intersex people seek to re-appropriate their bodies Intersex and construct their identities. It questions what our societies are Story ready to do in the name of social norms and what it means to be a France | 2018 | 58 min | French man, a woman or a little of both.
Director: Floriane Devigne
Floriane Devigne was Traces de Vies, among born in Lausanne, in others. Then she directed Swiss. She studied both at Dayana Mini Market for INSAS and at the Fémis the TV channel Arte. Film School in Paris. Soon This got the SCAM after she directed Les award in 2014 and was mots Clairewhich was also awarded at the selected and awarded festival Filmer le Travail at many festivals. Her (Poitier, France). She first feature La clé de la has also directed several chambre à lessive (72’) short films for Arte co-directed with Fred and France 2. Her last Florey won the SSR-SRG documentary No Box For prize at the Vision du Me. An Intersex Story was Réel Festival (Swiss) and broadcast on France 2 the diversity prize at in 2018. Saturday • 9:00 pm DOCUMENTARies 37 Saturday • 9:00 pm DOCUMENTARies 38
El Silencio Jaime recorded everything, even his own death. From him, her daughter Es Un Cuerpo received more than one hundred hours of home videos and many Que Cae uncertainties. Like many people of his generation, Jaime was a (Silence is a clandestine person. But in his case, probably two times clandestine. Falling Body) The images recorded by Jaime, resignify to give place to questions Argentina | 2017 | 1 hr 15 min | around desire, sexuality, family and Spanish freedom. Silence is a Falling Body is the trip to an intimate and filial past, but also to a political one.
Director: Agustina Comedi
Agustina Comedi, documentary feature (Córdoba, Argentina), Silence is a Falling Body is a screenwriter and at IDFA (Netherlands). director. She has a degree Presently, she works as a in Modern Literature and teacher of the Audiovisual then studied dramaturgy Workshop at the Popular with Mauricio Kartun, Bachelor Raymundo and screenwriting with Gleyzer, and she is writing Pablo Solarz. In 2017, her next film. she premiered her first Thursday • 10:30 am DOCUMENTARies 39
Ti Gars What defines a man? With the support of her chain of command, (One of the Corporal Virginie Lamarre, veteran of Afghanistan, officially becomes a Guys) man in the Canadian army.
France/Canada | 2018 | 1 hr 32 min | French
Director: Doris Buttignol
Born in France, she began One of Many, screened her artistic career in at the United Nations Vancouver in the early to address the notion 1980s, collaborating on of cultural genocide, projects related to the and No Gazaran, an FLUXUS movement and investigation on shale experimental work with gas in Europe. While new technologies. working on her film One She then began of the guys she is also working in documentary developing a “playground” filmmaking and has collaboration with a written and directed over Palestinian filmmaker 20 films since 1990. Her depicting the games of filmography includes the children in Gaza. Sunday • 12:10 pm DOCUMENTARies 40
Tin Satyi…(In Fact…) captures Tin Satyi... the essence of three different life-stories that are defying the (In Fact...) hetero-patriarchal norms of society at every breath. Aimed at India | 2018 | 51 min | Bengali understanding philosophies of non- conforming desires, the film also depicts ripples created by these lives in the society.
Director: Debalina
Debalina, is an Desire… can be seen independent filmmaker in conjunction with … and cinematographer. and the unclaimed, a She has made feature documentary made in length documentary films, 2013. Her film Joy Run short films, travelogues, was selected at the Shoot music videos and Goals! Shoot Movies! telefilms. She is also short film competition a still photographer of the Berlinale Talent and passionate about Campus 2005, and at the issues of gender and 55th Berlin International sexuality, environment Film Festival. Her film A and occasionally writes Stranger in a Bioscope for newspapers and was also a part of the magazines. Debalina’s same festival, produced latest film If You Dare by Sabotage Films, Berlin. Friday • 7:00 pm 41
Yeh Freedom Life / This Freedom Yeh Freedom Life was filmed over a year in Dr. Ambedkar Nagar in Delhi. Life / This It moves between the two very different worlds of its protagonists Freedom Life and tries to keep up with the currents and swings of their India | 2018 | 1 hr 10 min | Hindi respective loves. One of them works at a local beauty parlour, the other runs the family’s small cigarette counter at a crowded intersection. They are surrounded by a cacophonous city; they are both in love with other women. The film accompanies them through their desire to find and live their ‘freedom lives’ – lives that are outside society and family’s constant scrutiny and sanction. But this ‘freedom life’ also leaves them vulnerable to the precariousness of love, when it refuses such constraints.
Director: Priya Sen
Priya Sen works as a others. She has been at filmmaker and artist residencies at Gasworks across film/video, sound and Nottingham and installation. Her work Contemporary in the UK, has screened at various and Khoj Studios in New festivals and venues Delhi. She was an India including The Kitchen Foundation for the Arts NYC, BFI London Film fellow at the AIIS Archive Festival, Forum Expanded & Research Centre for Berlinale, Experimenta: Ethnomusicology from International Festival 2016 - 2017. Sen’s work of Moving Image Art, with film and sound has VIBGYOR International been around questions of Short and Documentary form, urban ethnography, Film Festival, and music and migration. IAWRT Asian Women’s She lives and works in Film Festival among New Delhi.
Short Documentaries Sunday • 3:25 pm short DOCUMENTARies 44
An Abstract An Abstract is a short documentary about an androgynous person, India | 2019 | 20 min | English Shreyash Sharma, living in India. It talks about their journey, experiences and opinions about so many things related to the LGBT community.
Director: Manoj Thorat
Manoj Sunanda is a queer short filmmaker from Pune. He started his journey with a short film Bhram which talks about casteism and homosexuality in India. Bhram was screened at BQFF 2016. Friday • 4:20 pm short DOCUMENTARies 45
Eli – A This short documentary-portrait offers an intimate and honest look at the intellectual world of a trans* Portrait person. The film combines archival Germany | 2018 | 7 min | German material to tell its story.
Director: Lumen Nguyen
Lumen Nguyen was born - HAW Hamburg and 1992 in Goslar and grew Eli – A Portrait is up in Mönchengladbach. her graduation film. She studies communication Lumen makes instant design at the University photographs and films. of Applied Sciences Friday • 2:45 pm short DOCUMENTARies 46 Friday • 2:45 pm short DOCUMENTARies 47
La Flaca Arely Vazquez is a Mexican transgender woman leader of the Saint Death Cult living in Queens, (The Bony New York. During her yearly ritualistic celebration of La Flaca Lady) (The Bony Lady), as she likes to call the skeletal saint of the cult, Arely USA, Brazil and Mexico | 2018 | faces a lot of challenges to fulfill a 20 min | Spanish promise she made ten years ago.
Directors: Thiago Zanato and Adriana Barbosa
Adriana is a Mexican- Thiago Zanato is a film Brazilian filmmaker based and creative director in São Paulo. In 2016, she living in Los Angeles, directed the short film California. He has over Ferroada (Bite), selected 16 years of experience at various film festivals. in advertising and has She premiered her first worked for several of documentary feature the biggest agencies and Madrigal for a Living Poet production companies in (2018) at the Official the US (TBWA, AKQA, Competition of the CP+B, B-Reel and others) 21st Mostra de Cinema and Brazil (Isobar/Dentsu de Tiradentes and she and Black Magic/IPG). continues her research He is currently directing on a documentary his first feature about regional Mexican documentary Esu and the traditions around death. Universe about an African god brought to the Americas by the enslaved Yoruba people. Thursday • 12:25 pm short DOCUMENTARies 48 Thursday • 12:25 pm short DOCUMENTARies 49
Lupah Sug Lupag Sug translates to ‘land of the brave’ in Tausug, a language used Philippines | 2018 | 29 min | by a major ethnic group hailing Filipino from Mindanao, the southernmost island of the Philippines. This half hour documentary narrates firsthand accounts of the struggles of a group of LGBTQI people for a safe space and acceptance in the region. Their stories detail their experiences being LGBT and Bangsamoro, a heterogeneous ethno-linguistic group of Muslim persons from Southern Philippines who have long struggled for the right to self-determination.
Director: Rhadem Camlian Morados
Rhadem Camlian Morados is a documentary filmmaker and a Peace & LGBT Muslim Rights Activist from the Philippines. He directed and filmed a documentary titled Hugo: A hidden past revealed. Thursday • 12:10 pm short DOCUMENTARies 50
Megg - The The film features Megg Rayara, a doctoral professor in Curitiba, and Margin Who her trajectory of resistance as a black transgender person in the Migrate to academic world. the Centre
Brazil | 2018 | 15 min | Portugese
Directors: Larissa Nepomuceno and Eduardo Sanches
Larissa Nepomuceno & Eduardo Sanches graduated in Visual Artes, UFPR, and decided to explore cinema in 2017. Both express an interest in art direction and documentary. Friday • 2:15 pm short DOCUMENTARies 51 Friday • 2:15 pm short DOCUMENTARies 52
Njan Sanjo Nján Sánjo (I’m Sánjo) documents ´ ´ the life of a dynamic young man named Sanjo in a transphobic (I'm Sanjo)´ suburban locality. Sanjo’s insights
India | 2019 | 15 min | Malayalam spill over the struggles with his gender identity, lack of inclusive spaces and minimal awareness of trans masculine identities in Kerala. Sánjo shares his passion for mathematics, hockey etc. and how they were key to his survival and realizing his gender identity. This short documentary attempts to delve into questions of autonomy of a trans man from Kerala, and the scope of inclusion for trans persons in contemporary Indian society.
Director: Jijo Kuriakose
Jijo Kuriakose is a queer a photoseries, part of activist who lives and a group show called works in Kochi, Kerala. Homomorphism II, which He is an active member opened at the Kerala of Queerala and has Museum in Kochi. worked previously on Friday • 4:08 pm short DOCUMENTARies 53
Our Stories The film talks about the journeys of trans men, who they are, their Our Journeys trials and struggles, issues with families, day to day problems like India | 2018 | 11 min | Kannada/ use of public toilets, migration and Tamil/Telugu/Malayalam challenges in a new place. It is woven around the lives of 9 trans men from 4 South Indian States. The overarching aim is to highlight their distinct life situations within the hetero-patriarchal society of India.
Director: Christy Raj
Christy Raj is a trans man. Correspondent for Video He is an independent Volunteers. Previously filmmaker and activist he has worked with and makes films on Sangama, a human rights newsworthy issues organisation based in within the transgender Bangalore, as a video community, as a Video documentarist.
Institut Francaise¸ Thursday • 6:40 pm Institut française 56 Thursday • 6:40 pm Institut française 57
La From September 2012 to May 2013, France gets passionate about the sociologue bill allowing marriage for all. During these 9 months, the sociologist Irène Théry recounts to her son the et l'ourson stakes of this debate. From these recordings, the directors invent a (The teddy bear cinema, made of toys sociologist and and pieces of cardboard. Intimate portrait and national saga, this film the bear cub) makes us rediscover what we all thought we knew perfectly: family. France | 2016 | 1 hr 18 min | French
Directors: Mathias Thery´ and Etienne Chaillou
Mathias Théry is a Etienne Chaillou is a director and writer, director, cinematographer known for La vie après la and primarily a writer. mort d’Henrietta Lacks The short film Ears Have (2005) and Premier Vote: No Lids (2005) and Considérant la jeunesse the TV documentary (2017). Cherche Toujours (2008) are his previous directorial efforts. Friday • 8:20 pm Institut française 58
One morning in Paris. A fistful Nocturama of adolescents, from different backgrounds. Individually, they France/Germany | 2016 | 2 hr 10 min | begin a strange dance through French the labyrinth of the metro and the streets of the capital. They seem to be following a plan.
Director: Bertrand Bonello
Bertrand Bonello was Pornographe), Tiresia, born in 1968 and My New Picture, On War, studied music before The House of Tolerance, a becoming a filmmaker. He concert film Ingrid Caven, directed his first feature, Musique et Voix, and Organic (Quelque chose the biopic Saint Laurent. d’organique), in 1998, for His films have screened which he also wrote the at the most prestigious screenplay and the music. film festivals in the His other films include world and has garnered The Pornographer (Le many awards. Thursday • 4:35 pm Institut française 59
Un Homme Fred is a projectionist, like his father. As he has to project a silver Mon Fils film in Normandie, he convinces him to hit the road together. The (A Man My road-trip will be a journey through clash of generations, drag-queens Son) and family affairs.
France | 2017 | 34 min | French
Director: Florent Gouelou
Florent Gouëlou was and fiction as in forms born in 1985. Trained in more experimental, theatre, he was an actor especially video for the and production assistant stage (dance, theatre). until he joined La Fémis A Man My Son is his in 2013. Today, he is as graduation film. interested in documentary
61 Public Service Broadcasting Trust (PSBT) 'Engaging with Sexualities' 62 PSBT presents: Engaging with Sexualities
The lives, stories and struggles of queer persons are complex, difficult, inspiring and moving, but remain largely excluded or caricatured in much of cinema. Engaging with Sexualities comprises short documentaries by starting out/ first-time filmmakers, that explore sexualities, gender, identity, desire, love, rights, relationships, choice, mental health and their intersectional experiences. Representing the voices and lives of diverse people, they reflect the many dimensions and facets of negotiating sexualities in public and private spaces and the blurred nature of these distinctions. They bring forth a range of complex realities and lived experiences, acknowledging the simultaneity of joy, sorrow, chaos, courage and agency. Varied in both – the narratives and their creative realisation, they speak powerfully to unfolding queer rights moments/ movements and open up a conversation on how filmmaking/ art might responsibly and positively engage with queer lives in their myriad manifestations.
The tone of the films is confident and assuring, speaking directly to institutionalised heteronormativity and the hegemony of the state over identity, sexual expression and desire. They are empowering journeys of affirmation and reclamation, an ode to the human spirit and bear witness to our histories of self-realisation, love and companionship.
The films are produced by the Public Service Broadcasting Trust, a pioneering non-governmental, not-for-profit organisation based in New Delhi, that commissions, mentors and produces independent documentary films. Founded in 2000 to empower filmmakers, democratise access to the media and encourage the freedom of expression, it has supported and nurtured over 500 independent voices and created around 700 documentaries on diverse themes and subjects. Films produced by PSBT have been selected by professional juries at over 1800 film festivals worldwide and received over 310 awards internationally.
For more, visit www.psbt.org Thursday • 6:11 pm PSBT 63
A Safe Narrated through the voice of a young person from a progressive South Delhi school, straddling the Person to binary world of genders, the film demonstrates the importance of a Talk to supportive environment created by India | 2018 | 19 min | English/ adult and peer allies. Hindi
Director: Navdeep Sharma
Navdeep Sharma studied sexuality and gender English Literature at justice is reflected in Hindu College before the choice of themes training in documentary for his work both as a filmmaking at AJK MCRC, practitioner and media Jamia. His consistent researcher. His films interest in exploring include Finding Juliana issues surrounding gender in Delhi & Dilli and River, expression and identity, Interrupted. Thursday • 5:34 pm PSBT 64
The film explores the intersections Breathe between identity, sexuality, mental health and the many alleys through India | 2018 | 24 min | English/ which women negotiate freedom Hindi and dignity. It interweaves the stories of Swati and Ray, as they redefine the boundaries of intimacy, desire and relationships.
Directors: Anushka Shivdasani Rovshen and Madhuri Mohindar
Anushka Shivdasani Prague, among others. contentious regions of Rovshen’s independent Her company Running the world and Red Roses film work explores Cow Films has directed exploring the immigrant conditions of the and produced films for experiences of South human mind. Us Paar various corporates. Asian women via a (The Opposite Shore) beauty parlor in New explores themes of Madhuri Mohindar York. Can’t Hide Me has astrological superstition has directed various screened at New York, and destiny. Her films documentaries exploring LA, Kenya, Afghanistan have been screened at immigration, race and and features in the the Gene Siskel Film gender including Can’t Social Impact Media Center, Chicago, as well Hide Me on women Award human rights as several international fighting invisible barriers, curriculum for teachers festivals at Karachi, My Kashmir on being and educators. Amsterdam, Toronto and young in one of the most Thursday • 4:22 pm PSBT 65
I'm Not The documentary explores the relationship between migration and one’s gender and views migration as There a journey that allows one to leave India | 2018 | 12 min | English/ behind a self that they don’t identify Hindi with, and move to a new space, seeking a new identity.
Director: Ajita Banerjie
Ajita Banerjie is a researcher on gender and sexuality rights based in New Delhi. This is her first film. Thursday • 12:55 pm PSBT 66
Ishq, Dosti The film is a light-hearted take on the lives of a transman and a lesbian, as they reflect on their and All loves, crushes, desires, dating experiences, friendships and That intimate relationships.
India | 19 min | English & Multiple Indian Languages
Directors: Srishti Lakhera, Rituparna Borah, Ritambhara Mehta, and Bhamati Sivapalan
The filmmaking collective with a focus on are part of Nazariya, lesbian, bisexual, queer, a Delhi-based queer genderqueer, non-binary feminist resource group people assigned gender working on issues of female at birth, and gender and sexuality, trans men. Saturday • 10:57 am PSBT 67 Saturday • 10:57 am PSBT 68
Please Delhi meets at the metro. The snaking lines of the tube now connect the whole city. Passengers’ Mind The board from different places but for a brief moment in time they are Gap all headed in the same direction. We share one such ride with our India | 2018 | 20 min | Hindi co-traveller Anshuman, a trans man. As the stations pass by we begin to look at the metro space from his perspective. His is the story of reclaiming public space and one’s own self. The doors will open on the quest. Please mind the gap.
Directors: Mitali Trivedi and Gagandeep Singh
Mitali Trivedi completed Natya Association—a her Masters in Gender theatre organization—for Studies from Ambedkar over half a decade. University, Delhi and is currently a Gagandeep Singh is a research scholar in the lawyer and a theatre Department of Sociology, practitioner. He is deeply University of Delhi. She interested in the historical has also been involved evolution of laws and in theatre and has been holds a Masters degree in working with Abhigyan Environmental Laws. Friday • 11:49 am PSBT 69
Zara The documentary juxtaposes personal narratives of cruising from the LGBTQ community, against Nazar diverse visuals of Indian public spaces, revealing different facets Utha Ke and complexities of urban cruising. Dekho
India | 2018 | 24 min | English/ Hindi/Punjabi/Kannada/Bengali
Director: Anindya Shankar Das
A direction graduate colleges, street hawkers from the Film and and multinationals. He Television Institute of has shot and edited a India, Anindya Shankar number of documentaries, Das is a filmmaker and music videos, photographer involved experimental and short in all aspects of film films and is currently technology. He has working on the script of a worked as a trainer for feature length film. students of schools and
Shorts Thursday • 5:20 pm shorts 72
2015 A lesbian couple is making the most of their last day together Philippines | 2018 | 14 min | Filipino inside their home, before one of them leaves for good.
Director: Eluna R. Cepeda
Eluna R. Cepeda (EC), 28, Arkeofilms, Quiapost worked as a production & Contagious Inc. She assistant in EDSA XXX wants to explore writing under the direction of queer stories and its Khavn Dela Cruz after potentials, by portraying graduating in 2012. Since LGBTQ characters that then, she has worked with experience pain and TV and film production rejection and how they houses like Kamias Road, overcome these. Sunday • 10:48 am shorts 73
Birds of The film travels through a day in the life of three transgender people set amidst the binary morality of Paradise society. India | 2018 | 10 min | Malayalam
Director: Rahul Sudha Mahesh
Rahul Sudha Mahesh was born and raised in Kerala, India. He is a student at the Film and Television Institute of India in Pune. Birds of Paradise is his first short film. Sunday • 10:20 am shorts 74
Birthday A night out, an old friend, and a special treat coalesce in this poetic USA | 2018 | 7 min | English short film.
Director: Shine Louise Houston
As the producer and for an alternative to director of Pink & White mainstream pornography, Productions, Shine and began to create Louise Houston’s works well-crafted queer made have become the new porn. Shine’s films have gold standard of adult been recognized among cinema. During a five the next big wave year position at the of women produced women-owned, sex toy porn and have been purveyor Good Vibrations, internationally screened Shine recognized an from Amsterdam to under-served demand New Zealand. Thursday • 3:12 pm shorts 75
Breaking A boy from a orthodox, conventional background gets attracted to another boy who is a Out! gay rights activist and is hated by India | 2018 | 25 min | Hindi others for being one. The story is about the troubles these boys have to face because of their attraction to each other.
Director: Heshvanth Gurukul
Heshvanth Gurukul, an films. He won a runner-up engineer, left his job at position in the Short Bosch to pursue a career Film Making category in films. He got a diploma at the Indywood Talent in direction, and has Hunt 2018. made a couple of short Friday • 2:00 pm shorts 76
Breakup in “On the morning you disappeared, the morning you sent that message and deactivated your account, I 9 Scenes wrote ‘Breakup in 9 scenes’. A day Lebanon | 2018 | 15 min | English after the military took power. A day after the revolution broke up with us. I wasn’t angry at you, I wasn’t angry at me, I was disappointed. Which loss is paralysing me more? How does one live with disappointment? What is the physical action associated with disappointment? Anger is much easier. Sadness is much easier. Hatred is the easiest. But I don’t hate you.”
Director: Leil Zahra Mortada
Leil-Zahra Mortada is work has a major focus a transfeminist queer on gender, sexualities, activist and filmmaker, documentation, born in Beirut. Leil has freedom of movement, formed part of several protest movements, alternative media groups discrimination, freedom and political collectives of expression, and in Lebanon, Egypt and post-colonialism. the Spanish State. Their Friday • 3:05 pm shorts 77
Came The While a disaster hits the country, two women organize their survival Wave in a lost forest.
France | 2018 | 20 mins | French
Director: Benjamin Busnel
Benjamin Busnel is has directed several scriptwriter and director, shorts, music videos, working with comedy brandcontent videos and and strange drama. short comedies. His short After his graduation, he movies have won prizes studied production at the in festivals in France and Boulogne Billancourt’s abroad. In 2013 Benjamin Audiovisual. In the 2000s, created Inernet, a humour he started directing youtube channel which shorts, and joined the first currently has 2,40,000 trans oriented French subscribers and more media company. Benjamin than 24 millions views. Thursday • 8:00 pm shorts 78
Cinderella The groom, exasperated by his despot father, joins the loonies to Iran | 2018 | 25 min | Persian disrupt his own wedding
Director: Mehdi Aghajani
Mehdi Aghajani is a himself from the common graphics artist, animator, realistic atmosphere of scriptwriter, director, Iranian cinema and to and producer. One of the employ mental, surreal characteristics of this and fantasy atmospheres director is to distance with an Iranian approach. Saturday • 7:35 pm shorts 79 Saturday • 7:35 pm shorts 80
Dante vs Twenty-year-old Wolf is living in the boxing village of the Mohammed Netherlands. When he has to fight against his best friend Alexander during a weekly match, he refuses. Ali A rematch is confirmed, which
The Netherlands | 2018 | 28 min | brings Wolf’s feelings and emotions Dutch to a boiling point. He tries to convince Alexander to join him in leaving the village, but his overly romantic message runs into a wall.
Director: Marc Wagenaar
Marc received his Bachelor in Communication in his hometown, Nijmegen. To develop his passion for film he moved to Berlin on the invitation of the award-winning documentary maker Viola Stephan. Sunday • 8:18 pm shorts 81
~ El nino que In the Madrid of the 80s, Ivan, a five-year-old boy, is confronted with ´ the birth of a new brother. His sister queria volar is dad’s favourite, the newborn is Spain | 2018 | 20 min | Spanish mom’s favorite. Which place does he take in this new situation? What if he could fly and escape?
Director: Jorge Muriel
Born in Madrid, Spain, NY Film Academy, Susan Jorge Muriel has an Batson Studio and Actors Economics Degree and a Center. He writes, directs double major in Drama. A and produces his films. Fulbright grant student His short film Lemon from 1999-2001, he lives Juice was nominated as in NYC and completed his best short film of the education in HB Studio, year, GOYA Awards 2010. Saturday • 12:52 pm shorts 82
Estigma It’s Friday night, the bell rings and Alex opens the door to the worst of Spain | 2018 | 14 min | Spanish his fears.
Director: David Velduque
David spent his childhood films Por Un Beso (2016), halfway between Madrid Crudo (2017) & No Place and Lisbon, devouring J.J. Like Home (2017) have Benitez’s UFO stories and generated more than 10 embracing the work of million views, alongside leading directors such several nominations in as Michael Haneke, international festivals Wes Craven, Alejandro such as Film Out (San Amenábar, Alfonso Diego) or Roze Filmdagen Cuarón and the famous (Amsterdam). ‘90s science-fiction TV Series The X- Files. His Friday • 12:13 pm shorts 83
Falling Zhiling and Yu En spend the night struggling to come to terms with Singapore | 2016 | 24 min | English their breakup before dawn breaks.
Director: Tang Kang Sheng
Tang Kang Sheng is which Passenger was currently pursuing a awarded the Special Master of Fine Arts Jury Prize and Best degree in Production, Performance Award at the majoring in Directing at 6th Singapore Short Film the School of Theater, Awards. Falling has been Film and Television, screened in multiple film UCLA. He has directed festivals in Asia. seven short films, of Friday • 3:47 pm shorts 84
Finding 1.6 million die in violence annually. Natural disasters claim nearly 250,000 lives every year. 1 in every Prayers 6 people on Earth don’t get enough India | 2019 | 21 min | Bengali food to live. 1 person dies due to suicide every 40 seconds. 607 go missing every day. And beside these, in every single second, 4 children see the light of this earth. The film attempts to find in the idea of a prayer for this world through documenting a transgender artist’s struggle-filled life.
Director: Nilay Samiran Nandi
Nilay Samiran Nandi is a Kolkata-based filmmaker who has made a number of short films, a documentary and a feature length film. Friday • 11:15 am shorts 85
Flora Experimental animation about gender, sexuality, and the USA | 2018 | 4 min | English awkwardness of division. Uncanny sculptures of vaginas and penises are the main elements.
Director: Chaerin Im
Chaerin Im is a woman Visual Communication filmmaker who focuses Design BFA program in on sexuality and gender 2017 and is currently issues through animation. studying at CalArts She graduated from Seoul Experimental Animation National University’s MFA program. Friday • 12:37 pm shorts 86 Friday • 12:37 pm shorts 87
Framing In the late 1950s, a woman named Agnes approached the UCLA Medical Center seeking Agnes sex reassignment surgery. Her Canada and USA | 2018 | 19 min | story was long considered to be English exceptional and singular until never-before-seen case files of other patients were found in 2017.
Director: Chase Joynt
Chase Joynt is an book, You Only Live internationally award- Twice (co-authored with winning filmmaker and Mike Hoolboom), is a writer. His latest two 2017 Lambda Literary films Genderize and Award Finalist and named Between You and Me are one of the Best Books of distributed online by the 2016 by The Globe and Canadian Broadcasting Mail and CBC. Chase Corporation. His film is currently a Banting Everyday to Stay won Postdoctoral Fellow at the Best Documentary at University of Chicago. BQFF in 2012. His first Sunday • 3:07 pm shorts 88 Sunday • 3:07 pm shorts 89
Hands and Mi-Sook helps her son Woo-Sung with masturbation because he has a disability that makes him unable to Wings do this himself. One day, Woo-Sung South Korea | 2018 | 18 min | rejects his mom’s offer to help. Korean
Director: Sungbin Byun
Born in 1991, Byun film The Chicken of is studying Film TV Wuzuh (2015) was also & Multimedia and invited to the Busan Eastern Philosophy International Film at Sungkyunkwan Festival and received University. His short film the Golden Reel Award Horn (2014) was invited from LA Asian Pacific to the Busan International Film Festival. Film Festival. His other Saturday • 10:34 am shorts 90
Katha A young man, Harihar, gets dragged by his mother to attend an event where he finds a storyteller telling Vachak the story of god Shiva’s conflict India | 2019 | 22 min | English/ with Bhasmasur, a Demon who Hindi/Kannada gains a powerful boon from the gods. As Harihar listens to the story, repressed adolescent desires surface as he finds an affirmative voice through mythology.
Director: Deepak Srinivasan
Deepak Srinivasan is an artist, designer, theatre maker and educator with over 13 years of experience in critical media and art practice. After pursuing acting, scripting and teaching film for many years, this is Deepak’s first attempt at directing a short- fiction film. Thursday • 3:37 pm shorts 91
Kiko Kiko is a blind gay man in his sixties who makes a living as Philippines | 2018 | 20 min | Filipino a laundress in a poor coastal community in Batangas City. He raises his eight year-old adopted son, Ton-ton, and supports his lover, Rex, by doing his neighbors’ laundry. Things go awry when Rex gets caught up in a drug scandal.
Director: Jojo Driz
Florencio “Jojo” Driz, than two decades as a Jr. is a film director fashion designer, was the and scriptwriter who proprietor of a fashion started his directing and studio in Batangas film scripting career City, and dabbled in art after finishing the 17th direction and costume Ricky Lee Scriptwriting design. He is co-owner of Workshop in 2017. Before JMD Productions, a film his introduction to film production outfit based in writing and directing, Batangas City. Jojo worked for more Friday • 3:25 pm shorts 92
a shortfilm by SOFÍA TORRE AND ANDREA ARMENTANO
(The Religious)
MARÍA ONETTO AGUSTÍN PARDELLA
INCAA presents a shotfilm by ANDREA ARMENTANO and SOFÍA TORRE / script ANDREA ARMENTANO and SOFÍA TORRE production ANDREA ARMENTANO, SOFÍA TORRE and AGOSTINA BRYK / director of photography CARLA LUCARELLA production designer ALEJANDRA ISLER / costume designer ANDREA MATTIO / hair & make up NESTOR BURGOS editor ELIANE KATZ / sound FEDERICO BILLORDO / sound editor & mixing TRES SONIDO Friday • 3:25 pm shorts 93
La Religiosa La Religiosa portrays the universe of a family from a small town in Argentina | 2018 | 22 min | Spanish rural Argentina—the relationship of a dominant mother and her son, with their conflicts and dramas.
Directors: Andrea Armentano and Sofia Torre
Sofía Torre graduated Andrea Armentano is in Cinema Studies at a Brazilian filmmaker, the National School of producer and independent Cinema Experimentation curator. She graduated and Realization of Buenos in Script and Aesthetics Aires and is the fourth of Directing at the New generation of filmmakers School for Drama in New in her family. York City. Sunday • 7:32 pm shorts 94
Lack Narges and Mohsen have a hidden relationship. Their neighbours find Iran | 2018 | 22 min | Azerbaijani out about it and protest and the landlord forces them to vacate...
Directors: Ramin Farzaneh and Parisa Sedaei-Azar
Ramin Farzaneh was born in 1989 in Ardabil, Parisa Sedaei-Azar was Iran. He is a director and born in 1989 in Ardabil, screenplay writer whose Iran. She is an actress, short film A Special Cut writer and filmmaker. She of a Situation (2016) was a candidate for Best has been screened in 3 Supporting Actress at national festivals and has the Fajr Festival of Iran won the award for the in 2018. best innovative film at the The New Classic Cinema Film Festival of USA in 2016. Thursday • 3:58 pm shorts 95
Lalla Lalla, a trans woman, comes back from Thailand where she underwent France | 2018 | 13 min | French an operation. Zacharias, her young nephew, invites himself over the evening of her return. Since her transformation, the family have distanced themselves from her. Fascinated by his aunt, Zacharias is counting on getting closer.
Director: Jose´ Salazar
Originally from He then studied cinema Venezuela, José Salazar at the Sorbonne. During began his career in his last year of Masters cinema as a self-taught in Screenplay, Direction, artist. He turned to Production, he wrote experimental video and the scenario for this launched several projects film inspired by the life that allowed him to of Lalla, a transsexual become familiar with woman he knew in the the filmmaking process. Parisian nightlife world. Sunday • 2:21 pm shorts 96
Langit Two teenage boys grappling with the challenges of school bullying and self-discovery, in a time of Budak great uncertainty and self doubt. Biru
Malaysia | 2018 | 23 min | Malay
Director: Lim Kean Hian
Lim Kean Hian majored company and then in Film at the Shih finished an MFA in Hsin University at the film making majoring Department of Radio, in directing at Taipei TV & Film in Taiwan. He National University of the has worked in director Arts (TNUA). Tsai Ming-Liang’s film Saturday • 2:17 pm shorts 97
Languages Shankar’s family does not know why he has lost his job. Shankar is India | 2019 | 30 min | Bengali caught between looking for a new job and his own contemplation. His daily life is dotted with financial crisis and the awkwardness of being unemployed. Amidst all this, strange illusions come to him.
Director: Debadrita Bose
Debadrita Bose started self-knowledge. She her career as a writer, received the QDrishti Film translator and literary Grant for Shehenaiiya editor. In cinema, she and completed her sought a more dynamic fiction, Languages, under way of self-expression. the said grant. She is Her first film Aakorsho currently working on her (Bonding) was centred on next fiction. Debadrita transgender identities. Her regularly writes on second film Shehenaiiya cinema for various online (The Clarinets) is about and print magazines. Thursday • 4:11 pm shorts 98
MMF A pair of thirty-somethings picks up a young, attractive black man Germany | 2017 | 10 min | German/ for a threesome. As they review the English experience, they probe each other, masking their own insecurities with hipster irony and provocation, including homophobic and racist jokes. Soon the situation turns very embarrassing for them.
Director: Leonard Garner
Born 1984 in Berlin, received positive media Germany, he interned attention, especially with Detlev Buck. Apart Queen’s Pride (2012) from making shorts, and Der Baron Ochs auf he acted on stage, and Lerchenau (2014). He is fronted Rock & Roll bands now looking for the best in Manchester, UK. His way to fuse film and stage plays for Alexander theatre with live music. Zu Schaumburg-Lippe Sunday • 10:27 am shorts 99
May Niranjan visits his dearest friend Sebi after a long stint. Niranjan, who India | 2018 | 14 min | Malayalam is a chef, is welcomed by Angel, Sebi’s wife. What has Niranjan got to say to Sebi?
Director: Harold Antony Paulson
Harold Anthony Paulson is a film direction student of KR Narayanan National Institute of Visual Sciences and Arts in Kottayam. Saturday • 2:47 pm shorts 100 Saturday • 2:47 pm shorts 101
Miss Man After being shunned by his homophobic father for his sexuality (International Premiere) and his lover for not being a India | 2019 | 25 min | Bengali woman, Manob finds himself travelling to the city for a sex change operation. However, as he struggles with his identity, he faces challenges and questions he may not be ready to confront yet.
Director: Tathagata Ghosh
Tathagata completed his Senilar Sonket was Mass Communication published at the Kolkata and Videography B.Sc International Book Fair from St. Xavier’s College, 2016. He has directed Kolkata and then his numerous commercials, post-graduation degree music videos and written from Vancouver Film screenplays for several School in Writing for projects. His last short Film and Television. He The Demon (Doitto) also writes for various has traveled to major web magazines about international film festivals cinema and filmmaking. and has won 4 awards His detective novel so far. Friday • 11:20 am shorts 102
Mort-Bois, During the summer of 1922, in the heart of the Burgundy region, Jean Genet is at odds with Georges, the a young son of the family he grew up with. Abandoned at birth by his mother, Jean Genet the teen is becoming aware of his differences and his rebellion. France | 2018 | 29 min | French Based on historical accounts and letters written by his mother to Child Services, Mort-Bois is a loose adaptation of the childhood of writer Jean Genet.
Directors: Frederic´ ´ Labonde and Frederic´ ´ Bonnet
Frédéric Labonde and Frédéric Bonnet live and work in Paris. For several years, they have directed films that have been featured at international festivals. Mort-Bois is their first co-production. Sunday • 2:00 pm shorts 103
Mud Mud Months after the divorce, Kumar shows up with bags at his ex-wife’s Ke Na Dekh door. She lives with her girlfriend who happens to be Kumar’s best India | 2019 | 22 min | Hinglish friend. Here is your classic triangle with a queer twist.
Directors: Mujeer Pasha and Veena Kulkarni
Mujeer Pasha, in his own Veena is a teacher, a words, is a 29-year old filmmaker, entrepreneur, pseudo-intellectual person godmother, cat-parent... living in Bangalore. And and in all of this, she tells thinks he is a cannon stories, that’s what she’s (pun totally intended, but best known for! She’s a violence). On a serious powerful show runner note, it’s quite a metaphor! and has put together Well, film-making has many successes in her been a major form of long, divergent career. his expression for the Anything created by past 6 years. Storytelling Veena tends to evoke love, through text, visuals and free thinking and hope... sound is his super-human much like the child-like power. This is how he optimist she is herself. thinks he brings value With her neon socks and and drives people to see warm smile, she rules the things differently. Ahem! stage and the hearts of her loved ones. Sunday • 7:55 pm shorts 104
Night At a supermarket, Magno watches over boys with backpacks as they go along the corridors. Meanwhile, Watch the night drags on slowly for (International Premiere) Bismarck, a cashier.
Brazil | 2018 | 23 min | Portugese
Director: Joao~ Victor Borges
Born in 1995 in Rio Association (ABC), for de Janeiro, Joao his work on the short film Victor Borges is an Cravo, Lirio e Rosa by undergraduate in Film Maju de Paiva. He’s also and Cinema Studies been the cinematographer at Fluminense Federal of various award University. In 2018, winning short films. he was awarded His first fiction script Best Student Film Vigia was awarded Best Cinematographer of the Script by the 2017 Sal Year by the Brazilian Grosso Award. Cinematography Thursday • 5:56 pm shorts 105
Only What Teenagers Laura and Fabio meet at a skate park and their friendship You Need blossoms into something deeper. But when Laura disappears without To Know a word, Fabio tracks her down to About Me uncover the reason why.
Brazil | 2018 | 15 min | Portugese
Director: Maria Augusta V. Nunes Partner at “NoveloFilmes”, Writer of TV show Johnny a visual content company Fever (winner of the “FSA” based in Florianópolis, Development Award), Brazil. Writer of the and the feature film The shorts Make do with what Duty, in coproduction (Rio International Short with Haddock Films Film Festival) and Golden (Argentina). She also has Arrow Wrestling Club a master and a doctorate (São Paulo International degree in Literature. Short Film Festival). Sunday • 8:38 pm shorts 106 Sunday • 8:38 pm shorts 107
Pashi In a remote Himachali Village, when his mom’s handsome friend India | 2017 | 32 min | Pahari unexpectedly shows up, a teenage boy is swept in a whirlwind of desire and vivid fantasy. As he struggles to rein in his strong impulses, he learns about pashi, an ancient technique of trapping birds, and begins to practice it. Winner of 7 International Awards and worldwide critical acclaim, Pashi is a heartbreaking love story.
Director: Siddharth Chauhan
Siddharth Chauhan is an independent filmmaker based in Shimla whose work has been screened around the world. He has directed two previous shorts – Boys Don’t Wear Nailpolish (2015) and Papa (2015). Friday • 2:30 pm shorts 108
Reality Reality Fragment 160921 follows two people in their process of reality-curation. They create Fragment their own spaces against and via understandings of distance, as 160921 they go through the motions of growing themselves by growing UK/USA/Sweden | 2018 | 14 min | their universes. English/Mandarin
Directors: Qigemu (Jasmine Lin + April Lin)
七个木Qigemu七個木 is a with bodies, information duo consisting of lovers and energies, and how April Lin and Jasmine Lin these are conceptualized exploring the interstices in the internet age. of movement, visual Qigemu is committed to media, identity, and the broadening what it means global Asian diaspora to be queer and Asian, as, respectively, Chinese- constructing alternative Swedish and Taiwanese- narratives of existence American. Using the grounded in un-learning potential of this hybrid and un-teaching space, Qigemu engages exclusionary ways of in conversations dealing movement and existence. Saturday • 12:42 pm shorts 109
Reinaldo's In 1927, Reinaldo Ferreira, a well- known journalist and writer who published under the pen name Motifs ‘Repórter X’, founded the cinema Portugal | 2018 | 9 min | Silent production company Repórter X Film, through which he directed four films that same year. Among them are O Táxi no. 9297 and Rita ou Rito?, where homosexuality, transvestism and drug use feature explicitly in Portuguese cinema for the first time. This film is an audiovisual essay that plays with a series of recurrent motifs in Reinaldo Ferreira’s cinematic work in a manner that is playful and not reverential.
Director: Ricardo Vieira Lisboa
Ricardo Vieira the history of Portuguese Lisboa works as a film and film preservation film programmer and restoration. As a for IndieLisboa - director, he has produced International Film Festival and directed experimental and Reverso Festival, short films and video and occasionally as a essays such as Le metro, curator for the Calouste Vieira da Silva (2016), Gulbenkian Foundation. Children, Madonna He is a film critic for and Child, Death and À Pala de Walsh, a Transfiguration (2016) website he co-edits and Cigarro Azul (2017), and co-founded. He has which have played in developed several papers national and international and academic articles on film festivals. Saturday • 8:04 pm shorts 110 Saturday • 8:04 pm shorts 111
Selma Selma is a trans woman who built her life away from the family. One day she gets a call to go to After The her elderly mother, who suffers from Alzheimer’s and needs Rain treatment. In this encounter, lost in confused memories, the two Brazil | 2018 | 12 min | Portugese women remember forgotten pains and desires, and revisit lost guilt and affection.
Director: Loli Menezes
Filmmaker, producer films and TV series. She’s and videographer, the co- founder of Vinyl Loli Menezes studied Films, a produce company cinema, video and TV at of Santa Catarina, where university UNISUL and she works as PR, Project has worked as director Manager and Social and producer, for short Media Coordinator. Saturday • 11:20 pm shorts 112
Snail Three young Iranian boys along with a smuggler are clandestinely Iran | 2017 | 11 min | Kurdish smuggling across the Iran-Turkey and Persian border. The smuggler only passes masculine people through the border. In the middle, he has a sudden realization.
Director: Mohammad Towrivarian
Mohammed Towrivarian was born in Iran in 1992 in Sanandaj City in the West of Iran. Friday • 12:57 pm shorts 113
Splendid A simple love story between a bored bumper car owner and a furry. Sometimes love makes us Case of forget… Doubt
Austria | 2018 | 4 min | No dialogue
Director: Daniel Moshel
Daniel Moshel was users and video bloggers born in Germany and has seen 300 festivals currently he lives and screenings (including works in Vienna, Austria. Sundance) and has won Login2Life (2011) was more than 30 awards. his first feature length MeTube2 launched its documentary. His recent career at the Sundance project Metube (www. Film Festival 2016 and metube.at), a music video became as successful as homage to thousands the prequel. Consequently of ambitious YouTube MeTube 3 is on its way. Sunday • 2:44 pm shorts 114
The By taking Jean Genet’s play The Maids as a point of departure, Housemaids the film is a journey through the mind space of two sisters, working India | 2018 | 23 min | English as housemaids for now an old upper class vegetative Madame. The sisters attempt to fill the void of their mostly curtailed life by playing ritualistic games - adorning each other in costume, class, language and behavior - enacting a freedom they never feel.
Director: Asawari Jagushte
Asawari Jagushte carved Asawari has directed a path in filmmaking digital films & social by assisting on various films for last three years. commercials & a feature. Asawari also collaborates She then studied her as a filmmaker with Masters at The London artists of different Film School followed backgrounds. Her work by another Masters in mostly falls in between Experimental Film at performance, photography Kingston University. and films. Sunday • 10:41 am shorts 115
Things Things Break In is an intimate portrait of independence and love. Ida and Rosa work on a farm Break In to support their families during USA | 2017 | 7 min | English wartime. Things Break In drops us invites us to see what might happen when two women in 1940 are required to work together in privacy.
Director: Tess Harrison
Tess Harrison is an others. Tess’s music video award-winning filmmaker for Minke premiered on and actress based in LA. Harper’s Bazaar in August She wrote, directed and 2018. Other music video starred in her debut short credits include two videos film It’s Perfect Here for X Ambassadors’ which received the Best forthcoming record, Narrative Short Award JOYFUl and Don’t Stay at the Napa Valley Film both of which have over Festival in 2015 and one million views. screened at numerous Sunday • 7:10 pm shorts 116 Sunday • 7:10 pm shorts 117
U Ushacha Usha, a single mother who works as a farm labourer in rural India, finds herself drawn to a female teacher (U for Usha) at the local primary school, in India | 2019 | 22 min | Marathi ways she never knew possible. This attraction plays an important part in firing her passion to read and write,and she hopes to be as good as the teacher.
Director: Rohan Parashuram Kanawade
After completing a In 2017 his short diploma in Interior Khidkee got selected Designing, Rohan in Indian Panorama of Kanawade spent as much IFFI, Goa. Impressed time as possible honing by his work, mythology his storytelling craft, writer Devdutt Pattanaik despite having no formal extended his financial training in filmmaking. In support to Rohan’s 2010 he left his full-time next short U Ushacha, job and invested his time which he completed in in writing and direction. mid-January 2019.
Holding You Close The BQFF Art Exhibition Holding You Close The BQFF Art Exhibition August 1-4, Max Mueller Bhavan • 10am – 9pm.
The point of departure of this year’s exhibition – Holding You Close – comes from an impulse to not just document our community but rather to showcase artists from our community, who comment on our individual and collective fashionings and fantasies by living with and among us.
These artists seem to make their work through the people they meet or not, people they encounter in person or virtually through online dating sites, or by choosing to be in their homes and find ways of occupying their time. By engaging with these multiple modes of making, they render time visible and offer us a sense of what it means to occupy a queer-time and a queer space.1
What does that mean? Well, queer-time is the time that is spent outside of frameworks that we’re expected to live by; it is time outside of family, outside of the things wanted of us, outside of how long we are going to live. This is time that is precarious, cherished and longed for. This is time spent cruising, spent labouring over making and unmaking, time spent in solitude, time spent dressing up or down, time spent on a bad date or over a broken heart.
And queer space is the space we make within our homes, space that’s made by holding hands, space that comes alive with gossip, space for delighting, for dancing, for drifting.
The three artists in this show, we hope make you pause and think: What does it mean for you to live, love and luxuriate within this queer-time and queer-space? Have you carved out a queer-time and queer-space for yourself?
Text: Arshad Hakim + Joshua Muyiwa
1 “Queer time” is a term for those specific models of temporality that emerge within postmodernism Once one leaves the temporal frames of bourgeois reproduc tion and family, longevity, risk/safety, and inheritance. “Queer space” refers to the place-making practices within postmodernism in which queer people engage and it also describes the new understandings of space enabled by the production of queer counterpublics.” Judith Halberstam, In a Queer Time and Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives (New York: New York University Press, 2005). 121
Drawing from Memory Aryakrishnan R.
Fleeting glances, fleeting touches. As a queer body, the significance of a moment seems to take place in the passing. Peripheral looks become a world unto itself, one fertile for life and love. This world constitutes the ecstatic, the communal and the solitary. In being able to create these worlds, we’re able to say: I have seen you. I recognise you. I love you. Love here is not an adjective but a verb. Love is an action, it is kindness and care, it isn’t always sexual or filial but it can be.
Aryakrishnan’s drawings mine these moments, and they swap formality for a style and medium that registers, remembers and records these people they have met with visceral affection and tacit tenderness. In looking at their drawings, you are bound to think: Have I seen this person? Do I know someone who stands like this? Why can’t I drop the feeling I recognise this person? In allowing for these associations, Aryankrishnan’s drawings open us up to our own memories of these bodies we’ve known, cared for, fought with, surrounded ourselves with and desired. In our queer worlds, you don’t ever die because you are never forgotten.
Text: Arshad Hakim + Joshua Muyiwa
Aryakrishnan R is an ongoing project Sweet artist, queer activist and Maria Monument is a curator based in Cochin monument for Maria, and New Delhi. They a transgender activist completed their MA in and performer who was Visual Arts from the murdered in 2012 in School of Culture and Kerala. The project was Creative Expressions, showcased most recently Ambedkar University at the Kochi-Muziris (Delhi) in 2014. Their Biennale 2018. Holding You Close : THE BQFF ART EXHIBITION 122
The Future Is Not My Gender Renuka Rajiv
I have been stitching over the last ten years or more. It began on t-shirts with some rough applique. About 6 years ago, there was a desire for that to grow out of the t-shirt, specifically inspired by seeing koudhis and kantha work. I remember wanting to make a large piece on black fabric with faces on it, but it never happened. Instead many small fragments emerged, and I just installed them together like a blanket on a wall. So it’s a funny happiness that the black piece with faces happened a few years later because of the chance to make and show work at HomeSweetHome, Bangalore. It took a couple of months to make while watching a lot of Parks and Recreation. This led to more works though not as big. The works I am sharing here are from the last three years or so.
Renuka Rajiv has had an playing with fabric and interest in making things paper. Most themes and since childhood, exploring content in their work is drawing, paper mache, personal, which includes tie-dye and stitching. the compulsion towards During their school years, the hand-made. Their they took part in different work inhabits a space creative events. After that that accommodates the they studied digital video imaginative, observational production at Srishti and autobiographical. The School of Art, Design and objective is to explore Technology in Bangalore communication that is not and a Bachelor of Fine centered around verbal Arts (with Honours) expression, and to jump majoring in printmaking around in an expanded at Victorian College of playground. Since 2012, Art, Melbourne. Since they have been exhibiting then, their work has regularly in group and reconnected with the solo shows. childhood interests of Holding You Close : THE BQFF ART EXHIBITION 123
It has the appearance of a deliberate transgression Sandip Kuriakose
Taking the portrait as a central theme in visualising (other) sexualities, collage and drawing is used to re-conceptualise photographs taken off Planet Romeo, a popular gay dating website in India. Men are able to perform versions of their masculinities in ways that are sometimes not possible in their daily lives, thus living through parallel identities in varied ways, many of which seems constructed and re-created to fit their own ideas of a ‘perfect’ kind of masculinity. These distorted images seem to mirror the idea of the original image that has been put up in the first place; always seemingly contradictory.
Sandip Kuriakose FotoFest International graduated with an MVA 2018 Biennial Central (Painting) from MS Exhibition INDIA University, Baroda (2014) - Contemporary and a BFA (Painting) Photographic and New from the College of Art, Media Art, Houston; New Delhi. The primary Regimes of Truth, Gati focus of his work has Dance Forum, New Delhi; been an examination The 6th European Month of power structures, of Photography, Das Foto that is based in the Image Factory, Berlin; ethnographic, archival Art For Young Collectors, and biographical. His Galerie Mirchandani + primary materials are Steinruecke, Mumbai; photography, text and and United Art Fair, New publications. Shows Delhi among others. include Listening as Residencies include Clark Practice, Gallery MMB House Initiative (2018), Goethe-Institut / Max CONA Foundation (2018), Mueller Bhavan, Mumbai TIFA Working Studios (upcoming); In Search (2018) and the Summer of Baba Singh, UCI, Residency Program, California; Against the School of Visual Arts Order Of, Clark House (2013). He lives and Initiative, Mumbai; works in New Delhi.
Panels PAN E LS 126
Panel I : How To Make A Queer Image Saturday, 3rd August 2019 • 6:50 – 7:35 pm Max Mueller Bhavan
What is a queer image, and how does one make it, remake it, and negotiate with it? How do we see it and how do others?
Moderator: Shai Heredia
Panellists: Priya Sen, Debalina, Satya Nagpaul, Shilpi Gulati, Jainendra Dost
Shai Heredia is a filmmaker and Satya Rai Nagpaul is an award-winning curator of film art. In 2003, she founded cinematographer and a person of trans Experimenta, an international festival of masculine experience. He has shot avant moving image art. She lives in Bangalore garde cinema in the Punjabi language - and teaches at the Srishti Institute of Anhey Ghode Da Daan [National Award, Art, Design and Technology. 2011], Chauthi Koot [In Competition & World Premier: Un Certain Regard, Festival De Cannes, 2015; Filmfare 2017]. His most prominent contribution to queer cinema is the film Aligarh [Busan and BFI, 2015]. He founded Sampoorna, a network of trans and (now) intersex inclusive Indians in the late 90s.
For bios of other panellists, please refer to the film list section of the brochure. PAN E LS 127
Panel II : The Language of Films Sunday, 4th August 2019 • 11 am – 12 pm Max Mueller Bhavan
Who talks and who listens? What is the language of cinema? Who are its fluent speakers and who needs translation?
Moderator: Gee Imaan Semmalar
Panellists: Mujeer Pasha, Unnikrishnan Avala and Crew, Christy Raj, Rohan Kanwade, Manoj Thorat
Gee Imaan Semmalar is a trans activist, film maker and theatre artist and a big time fanboy of BQFF.
For bios of other panellists, please refer to the film list section of the brochure.
Performances 130 What’s a queer film festival without drama? Emotions! Performances? This year, our 10th anniversary special features three superb evening of music and dance, theatre, spoken word and poetry.
The BQFF Curtain Raiser: An Evening of Music and Dance
B Manjamma Jogathi and Troupe
Wednesday, 31st July 2019 • 6:30 – 8:30 PM Bangalore International Centre
B Manjamma Jogathi and her troupe are one of the last Jogathi groups – trans-women followers and disciples of Goddess Yellamma – who still practice and perform the traditional folk music and dance.
Manjamma, with her troupe, will bring to the stage short snippets of the play Yellammanata interspersed with Chowdki Pada – songs that trace the life and glory of Goddess Yellamma, using a pair of folk instruments called the Shruthi and Chowdki. The performance will end with Jogathi Nrithya, a dance practised by this community, where they dance while perfectly balancing pots – decorated with Yellamma symbols and filled with water – on their heads.
B Manjamma is a Karnataka Rajyotsava awardee, Sandesha awardee and is a member of the Karnataka Folklore Academy. She lives in Mariyammanahalli, a small town in North Karnataka with a few jogathis, adopted children and several animals. She is revered as a matriarch of her community. performances 131
Nanna Dwani/Enathu Kural – A One-Act Play In Kannada and Tamil
A Revathi
Friday, 2nd August 2019 • 6:00 – 7:00 PM Alliance Francaise de Bangalore
Enathu Kural/Nanna Dwani – which translates as my voice, or I Have A Voice – is a one act play by writer, theatre artiste and trans rights activist A Revathi.
Based on a dramatised version of her autobiography, I Have A Vo i c e charts the life of Revathi, from meeting and becoming a member of the trans women commune in Dindigul, finding a mentor and protector, and later mother, in the form of an elder from the community, and later herself becoming a mother to other trans women, and uniquely, to trans men too. Revathi talks about the oppression she faced from society, doing the work that trans women are forced to, as well as police violence, ostracisation. But it isn’t all dark, because Revathi also found love and acceptance.
The performance, which was conceptualised by Revathi with the assistance of theatre director Mangai, ends with a poem called ‘Kuri Aruthen’ by Kalki, Revathi’s daughter.
A Revathi has written many books, including Unarvum Uruvamum (2004), The Truth About Me: A Hijra Life Story (2010) which was later published in Tamil as Vellai Mozhi (2011) and A Revathi: A Life In Trans Activism (2016). She won the Canadian Tamil Literary Garden Memorial Prize for her book Unarvum Uruvamum. performances 132
An Evening Of Poetry & Book Launch
Hoshang Merchant, Vikramaditya Sahai, Namita Aavriti and Joshua Muyiwa
Sunday, 4th August 2019 • 6:00 – 7:00 PM Goethe Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan
Listen to four poets talk about life, love, lust and loss, about queerness and not queerness, about that special place which is the fount of words and poetry.
Hoshang Merchant is one of the Namita Aavriti is a writer. She divides country’s foremost poets, having been her time between Bengaluru in India and published since 1989. His first book the many worlds in books and movies. Flower To Flame was soon followed She has written on law, cinema, internet, by Stone to Fruit and many more archives, sexuality, technology, feminism, collections of poetry. He is credited with family. She is currently the global editing Yaarana, the country’s first gay English language editor for GenderIT.org anthology. He is a teacher, and a critic and one of the co-directors of BQFF. as well. His latest book, The Gay Icons Of India is just out and will be launched at the BQFF.
Vikramaditya Sahai is a writer, poet Joshua Muyiwa is a Bangalore-based and academic, they have been primarily poet, writer and columnist. He is also focussed on understanding queer one of the co-directors of BQFF. politics. They live and work in Delhi.
Ten Years of Gratitude
First off we’d like to offer the biggest thanks to both the Goethe- Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan (GI/MMB) and Alliance Française de Bangalore for being our venue partners, collaborators, supporters and friends these last ten years. They have graciously and generously offered the festival a home and been invested in keeping it running, offering it films, giving it discounts and joined in on our raucous fun, and we truly appreciate the relationship we have with them.
This year we thank Dr. Claus Heimes, Maureen Gonsalves and Amal Jose at GI/MMB, for partnering with us in this mad caper yet again. Maureen, specially, for her unstinting support, goodwill and her ability to navigate crises without batting an eyelid.
At AFB Dr. Philippe Libersa and Anjana Ramesh, Joseph, Aslam and Kantha Raj, for rekindling our partnership and for all of their help and support in making the festival a four-day gala in its tenth year.
We also thank all the prior directors of both AFB and GI/MMB for helping build this history for the festival. Also cultural directors and interns at both institutions, especially Prutha Narke at AFB for being such a valiant supporter. We must also thank the technical staff at both venues - Kantha Raj, Aslam and Amal Jose at MMB, who bear our invasion into their space and are always alert to our needs.
Our other venue collaborators and supporters, 1 ShanthiRoad and Shoonya, for hosting events in past years and adding to the queerness of it all. This year’s new venue collaborator, the Bangalore International Centre, and Raghu Tenkayala, for hosting our 10th anniversary curtain raiser. 135
Film
We offer our deepest gratitude to all the filmmakers who have submitted their films to us over ten years, it’s been a fabulous ride of watching, previewing, wanting to screen again, critiquing, crying, laughing, screaming, hating and wanting! Good cinema is at the heart of the festival and we have loved your films and the fact that you sent them to us! Some of you are joining us this year and some are far away but we hope to have you at the festival in our utopian future!
All our curators in the past: John Badalu (Q! Festival and now producer, whom we will bring to BQFF soon!), Shai Heredia (Experimenta), Anna Helme and Kelli Jean Drinkwater (Rabid Tripped-out Psychedelic Lesbian Koalas), Sharon Jackson (Out in Africa) & Thomas Waugh (two years in a row!), for the amazing packages that the festival has been lucky to include. Artist and writer Richard Fung, whose video art package was a truly beautiful part of our 2017 festival.
Those who have been members of our jury, in the years in which we had a competition section.
Everyone who offered and agreed to make our endearing festival films through the years!
Rumi Harish, Sunil Mohan, Ratheesh Radhakrishnan and Renjini Krishnan, who’ve helped us source and screen many Indian films that we otherwise might have missed. Margot Cohen and Lyle Pearson, for their yearly support in finding films, promoting films we screen at other festivals and linking us with festivals and filmmakers. Tejaswini Niranjana and Naifei Ding, for introducing us to filmmakers from Taiwan and Hong Kong and for showing their support in unnameable ways. We also thank everyone else who has put us in touch with filmmakers, festivals and curators in the last ten years (the list is too long for this page!) 136
This year our filmy thanks go out to…
Debalina, Christy Raj, Jainendra Dost, Manoj Thorat, Mujeer Pasha, Priya Sen, Rohan Kanawade, Satya Rai Nagpaul, Shilpi Gulati and Unnikrishnan Avala and his team, for being our filmmaker panelists and adding considerably to the frisson the festival generates with their ideas and stories on queer filmmaking.
Gee Imaan Semmalar and Shai Heredia for consenting to moderate the panels, bringing a host of insights to bear on the films, and doing it all in full style!
Aarthi Parthasarathy, filmmaker, webcomic creator, writer and artist, who’s made our tenth anniversary festival film!
Simon Napier-Bell, who agreed to fly down from the UK to talk about his film and his long history of working in the music industry. We’re sorry he couldn’t make it this time, but the show’s not over yet!
Jiz Lee, for finding us delicious and ground-breaking erotic films and introducing us to their makers.
Sajitha and Gee, for putting us in touch with Unnikrishna Avala, and making it possible for us to screen Udalaazham.
John Badalu, for sending us filmmaker contacts this year as well! It’s because of you that we manage to represent East and Southeast Asia in the festival!
Fatrick Tabada and Rae Red, Maria Wincess and Bianca, for the delightful Chedeng and Apple. Arvind Narrain for putting us in touch. Leon Le, for consenting to the screening of the rompy Song Lang.
Shilpi Gulati and Jainendra Dost, for their beautiful film Naach Bhikhari Naach.
Jane Yao, David Lorenz, Maria Vera and Kino Rebelde, for being considerate and friendly producers and distributors and making many 137 wonderful screenings possible. Performance & Art
Not in any way less adored, we have to thank all the pervy, touching, politically astute performers and artists who have sung, spoken, read and exhibited their work at BQFF these last ten years, you have made sure the festival caters to all kinds of love for all forms of art and craft. A special shout out to The Pink Divas for setting our stage on fire so many times! And a special thanks to Akshay Mahajan, who’s curated multiple photo exhibits purely from an affinity with the queer image.
For BQFF 2019 we thank...
B Manjamma Jogathi & Troupe, Hoshang Merchant, Revathi A and Vikramaditya Sahai, for travelling long and short distances to attend the festival and perform, discuss and read their work. You are truly a mind-bending lot!
Our artists Aryan Ramakrishnan, Renuka Rajiv & Sandip Kuriakose, for their exhibitions that open out the world through image, gesture and stroke. Arshad Hakim for working on the exhibition note and for his swift and dependable assistance in making the exhibition happen.
Shilpa Mudbi and the Urban Folk Project, for helping us invite and introduce Manjamma and the other performers.
Design, Donation and Support
Through the years a whole host of people have provided the legs, hands, eyes, heart and bank balance that the festival has needed to keep going. Even if a thousand films came in every year the festival wouldn’t run without our supporters, in the form of designers, sponsors, donors and volunteers! There are too many of you to thank and you know who you are and we hope you’ll always have our backs! We thank everyone who’s sponsored material, brochures, food at events, parties; everyone who’s donated their hard earned money; and all the volunteers who’ve donated their time in the last decade! 138
We’d like to specially mention Good As You (GAY), WHaQ and All Sorts of Queer (ASQ) (Mari Eva Mendes, Rohini Malur, Sumitra Sunder, Abhishek Agarwal, Prasoon Joshi, Krithika Kris, Vidya Pai and many many others), for the time, energy and money spent through the years in keeping the festival on its feet, through co-hosting, volunteering, donation drives and event coordination, and the enthusiasm and love the festival has been witness to!
This year a shout out to…
Samvada, the organisation that hosted our AJWS travel grant for the filmmakers and artists, without which we would not have had such splendid panels and performances this year - specially Anita Ratnam (ED) and Antony Varghese and Poornima S (Accounts department). Devashri Mukherjee, from AJWS.
Manish Gaur of The Institute of Baking and Cake Art & Priyank Sukanand of Naidu & Sons, for showering cupcakes, sandwiches and samosas on the garage sale, the volunteers and organisers were grateful!
Designer Roshan Shakeel for accommodating all our eccentric demands and ensuring that this bestially stylish 10th anniversary brochure gets released on time. We raise our beaks, crests and horns to you! A shout out to Kevin Mathews, for changing the brochure game for us two years ago.
Radhika Timbadia and Champaca Bookstore, Library and Cafe, for the charming pop-up book store that brought the world of books back into BQFF.
Volunteers at both the garage sale and the festival, we couldn’t have done either of these without you sweating it out with us, and we’re deeply grateful for your support and time. Please come back next year! Meow to you!
Donors: First, those who donated their reusable items generously for the garage sale, we’ve never had such an enthusiastic response and the proceeds from the sale eased our financial worries considerably! 139
Second, all those who donated money this year to ensure that the festival is kept on its feet - it’s because of you that we keep ourselves independent and community-centred year after year!
John, at the National Printing Press, whose rapid velocity work and ability to accommodate our printing deadlines invokes our fullest thanks.
Last but never least, our audience, those who have been coming year after year, those who show up for the first film of the day, those who immerse themselves in the closing films, those who hoot and cry and shout and laugh and stay silent, those who come for good cinema and art and don’t mind the crowds and the sweat and the smells and the tech snags (or come because of these!). The festival hearts you. Film Contacts
2015 Chedeng and Apple Eluna R. Cepeda Fatrick Tabada [email protected] [email protected]
A Safe Person to Talk to Cinderella Navdeep Sharma Mehdi Aghajani [email protected] [email protected]
A Woman Is A Woman Dante vs Mohammed Ali Maisy Goosy Suen Marc Wagenaar [email protected] [email protected]
An Abstract El Niño Que Quería Volar Manoj Thorat Jorge Muriel [email protected] [email protected]
Birds of Paradise Eli - A Portrait Rahul Sudha Mahesh Lumen Nguyen [email protected] [email protected]
Birthday Estigma Shine Louise Houston David Velduque [email protected] [email protected]
Breaking Out! Falling Heshvanth Gurukul Tang Kang Sheng [email protected] [email protected]
Breakup in 9 Scenes Finding Prayers Leil Zahra Mortada Nilay Samiran Nandi [email protected] [email protected]
Breathe Flora Anushka Shivdasani Rovshen and Chaerin Im Madhuri Mohindar [email protected] [email protected] Framing Agnes Came The Wave Chase Joynt Benjamin Busnel [email protected] [email protected] 141
Hands and Wings Lack Sungbin Byun Ramin Farzaneh and Parisa Sedaei-Azar [email protected] [email protected]
I’m Moshanty. Do You Love Me? Lalla Tim Wolff José Salazar [email protected] [email protected]
I’m Not There Langit Budak Biru Ajita Banerjie Lim Kean Hian [email protected] [email protected]
Ishq, Dosti and All That Languages Rituparna Borah, Srishti Lakhera, Debadrita Bose Bhamati Sivapalan, Ritambhara Mehta [email protected] [email protected] Lupah Sug Katha Vachak Rhadem Camlian Morados Deepak Srinivasan [email protected] [email protected] MMF Kiko Leonard Garner Jojo Driz [email protected] [email protected] May La Flaca (The Bony Lady) Harold Antony Paulson Adriana Barbosa and Thiago Zanato [email protected] [email protected] Megg - The Margin Who Migrate to La Primavera Trans the Centre Juan David Larissa Nepomuceno and Eduardo [email protected] Sanches [email protected] La Religiosa Sofía Torre and Andrea Armentano Meili [email protected] Zhou Zhou [email protected] La sociologue et l’ourson Mathias Théry, Étienne Chaillou [email protected] FILM CONTACTS 142
Miss Man Pashi Tathagata Ghosh Siddharth Chauhan [email protected] [email protected]
Mort-Bois, a young Jean Genet Please Mind The Gap Frédéric Labonde and Frédéric Bonnet Mitali Trivedi and Gagandeep Singh [email protected] [email protected]
Mud Mud Ke Na Dekh Reality Fragment 160921 Mujeer Pasha Qigemu Lin [email protected] [email protected]
Naach Bhikhari Naach Reinaldo’s Motifs Shilpi Gulati and Jainendra Dost Ricardo Vieira Lisboa [email protected] [email protected]
Night Watch Selma after the rain João Victor Borges Loli Menezes [email protected] [email protected]
Njan Sanjo El Silencio Es Un Cuerpo Que Cae Jijo Kuriakose (Silence is a Falling Body) [email protected] Agustina Comedi [email protected] No Box For Me. An Intersex Story Floriane Devigne Snail [email protected] Mohammad Towrivarian [email protected] Nocturama Bertrand Bonello Song Lang [email protected] (AFB) Leon Le [email protected] Only What You Need To Know About Me Maria Augusta V. Nunes Splendid Case of Doubt [email protected] Daniel Moshel [email protected] Our Stories Our Journeys Christy Raj The Housemaids [email protected] Asawari Jagushte [email protected] FILM CONTACTS 143
Things Break In Tess Harrison [email protected]
Ti Gars (One of the Guys) Doris Buttignol [email protected]
Tin Satyi ... (In Fact ...) Debalina [email protected]
Transfinite Neelu Bhuman [email protected]
U Ushacha Rohan Kanawade [email protected]
Udalaazham Unnikrishnan Avala [email protected]
Un Homme Mon Fils Florent Gouelou [email protected] Film packages courtesy Venue Partners bqff.in [email protected]