It is that time of the year again where you can kick off your shoes, lie on a mattress and watch a film as the 11th edition of the Bangalore Queer Film Festival (BQFF) will be held from March 6 to 8. Around 65 films, including shorts, documentaries, feature length, and animated films, will be screened with Max Mueller Bhavan hosting on the first day and Alliance Francaise de Bangalore on the other two days.
Talking about what festival-goers can expect, Nadika Nadja, one of the eight co-directors of the festival, says: “Usually, we don’t go by categories at the festival. Instead, we look at representation, the larger narrative and the politics of each of these films and how the films redefine the idea of queer. That has largely been the focus of BQFF. Earlier, a lot of films, not just at BQFF but also at other queer film festivals, were focused on gay men. “But over the last few years, we have got a lot of trans and intersex focus. So, we are looking at how queerness is being represented and what we can do to change the dialogue around it.”
She adds, “When people say queer cinema, they usually mean gay and some lesbian films. The dynamic is almost always that. For instance, there are very few films that talk about the bisexual part in LGBT. And trans films are usually full of gloom and made by a cis man who wants to save us. That is why we try to get films made by queer people themselves who talk about their aspect of queerness, how they live and negotiate life.”
- What to watch out for
- Anders Als Die Andern (1919, German)
- The Blonde One (Spanish)
- Kattumaram (Tamil)
- Gay India Matrimony (Bengali)
- Nupishabi (Manipuri)
- Kucumbu Tubuh Indahku (Indonesian film)
- Love and Death in Montmartre
- There will also be performances, including a dramatised reading of Esthappen's new play, Slam Bam Thank You Ma'am, which looks at emerging sexual trends and practices in the queer community through the lives of its characters.
Detailing some of the films that will be screened, Nadika says, “There are a whole bunch of films that are exciting and interesting. We will be screening a 100-year-old German film that is very queer called Anders Als Die Andern. Then there is Coffee Café, a Tamil feature-length film, which I like for the way it represents the denominations of what queerness means.”
Stating that the BQFF has grown over the last decade, Rovan Varghese, co-director, says, “From being just a bunch of people coming together to celebrate queer cinema, it is now one of the premier events of the Bangalore queer space. A lot of cinephiles too come for the festival because not only do they get to watch mainstream queer cinema but also the film festival provides a space for a lot of smaller documentaries, shorts etc. that one would never get to see or hear about. And because the films are from across the world, it covers a wide spectrum of topics and queer lives and perspectives.”
He adds, “It is also a forum for the community to come together. It is a big social space for people to interact and connect with each other. One of the unique things about the BQFF is that a large part of it is crowd-funded, which means that the community space and relevance of the film festival is retained in spirit.”
(Entry is free. Register on bqff.in.)