KASHISH 2021 Festival Catalog

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The 12th KASHISH Mumbai International Queer Film Festival At Morgan Stanley we not only accept our differences, we celebrate our individuality and freedom of expression. It is our differences that make our Firm stronger.

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Thrilled to be Supporting the KASHISH MUMBAI INTERNATIONAL QUEER FILM FESTIVAL

CONTENTS

20 FESTIVAL VISION 21 FESTIVAL BACKGROUND 22 KASHISH INITIATIVES 24 KASHISH ORGANIZERS 25 MESSAGE FROM FESTIVAL PATRON 26 WELCOME NOTE BY FESTIVAL DIRECTOR 27 ADVISORY BOARD 29 KASHISH 2021 AWARD CATEGORIES 31 FESTIVAL JURY - NARRATIVE 33 FESTIVAL JURY - DOCUMENTARY 34 FESTIVAL JURY - STUDENT SHORTS 35 KASHISH INTERNATIONAL POSTER DESIGN CONTEST 36 FILMS IN COMPETITION (At A Glance)

DISCOVERY WEEKEND 39 Thursday 19th August 40 Friday 20th August 51 Saturday 21st August 62 Sunday 22nd August

ACCEPTANCE WEEKEND 75 Thursday 26th August 87 Friday 27th August 97 Saturday 28th August 108 Sunday 29th August

PRIDE WEEKEND 119 Thursday 2nd September 133 Friday 3rd September 144 Saturday 4th September 155 Sunday 5th September

160 ALLIED EVENTS 165 FESTIVAL TEAM 167 FRIENDS OF KASHISH 168 KASHISH 2021 PARTNERS 169 FESTIVAL SCHEDULE 177 FILM INDEX

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FESTIVAL VISION

KASHISH Mumbai International Queer Film Festival is an attempt to encourage greater visibility of Indian and International queer cinema among both queer and mainstream audiences as a means to foster better understanding of queer thoughts, desires and expressions.

Since its debut in 2010, KASHISH has emerged as South Asia’s and India’s biggest LGBTQIA+ film festival. We are committed to bring the best of international and Indian queer cinema to Mumbai and continue mainstreaming of queer issues and their lives.

Apart from exhibiting LGBTQIA+ films during its annual festival, KASHISH also has been instrumental in taking Indian LGBTQIA+ films across the world, offering these films distribution, and also producing sensitive LGBTQIA+ content through film grants.

KASHISH believes that art and films are powerful mediums to bring about social change and the festival uses the reach and spread that KASHISH has already established as one of Mumbai’s important film festivals to rally public opinion towards equality and dignity for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual and non-binary persons. KASHISH uses local, national and international platforms to advocate and sensitize the larger public about LGBTQIA+ issues.

KASHISH strongly believes in bringing together the diversity of the LGBTQIA+ experiences through films and discussions, and enable an equitable society for every LGBTQIA+ individual to live with dignity.

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FESTIVAL BACKGROUND

Voted as one of the Top 5 LGBTQIA+ Film Festivals in the world, KASHISH Mumbai International Queer Film Festival is South Asia’s biggest queer film Festival and the first LGBTQIA+ film festival in India to be held in a mainstream theatre.

Founded in 2010 and held every year for the past seven years the festival has grown from strength to strength. KASHISH attracts close to 8500 footfalls every year over its five day festival. It is the first Indian LGBTQIA+ festival to be held with the approval of the Information & Broadcasting ministry, Government of India.

The festival also attracts topline Bollywood celebrities, filmmakers, critics and academicians from India as well as many international guests from across the world. It receives more than hundred press features every year from the Indian press as well as international press, including the New York Times.

KASHISH since 2010 to 2016 has been organized by Solaris Pictures and co-organized by The Humsafar Trust. Since 2017, KASHISH is organized by KASHISH Arts Foundation, in association with Solaris Pictures.

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KASHISH INITITATIVES

KASHISH has various initiatives to keep the mainstream engaged in the conversation around LGBTQ+ issues through the year using the medium of films.

KASHISH Forward India’s first travelling campus queer film festival – is a series of one-day festivals that would travel to campuses across India, aiming to reach out and create awareness about issues of the LGBTQ+ community. The objective is to create an atmosphere of acceptance for queer students who would be grappling with issues of coming out in sometimes hostile environments. KASHISH Forward has held over 40 screenings in colleges across India, not only in Metro cities, but also Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities.

KASHISH Rendezvous Considering the need for conversations around LGBTQ+, KASHISH Rendezvous is a one-and-a-half hour customized program of films and discussions for corporate companies. The films and discussions will be a window into the broad spectrum of the lives of LGBTQ+ colleagues.

Besides sensitizing the audience to the issues of LGBTQ+ persons, it will show that their lives are no different from their own. KASHISH has been actively holding screenings, alongwith panel discussions, over the past two years to several corporate houses, Best of KASHISH Best of KASHISH film screenings are organized across India at film festivals, events and as part of Pride celebrations in various cities.

Short films and documentaries that have won awards or were audience favorites in the previous edition, are programmed at these events to offer a glimpse of the Best of KASHISH. KASHISH Global With a view to provide a platform for Indian filmmakers who make films on queer themes, KASHISH facilitates screenings of Indian LGBTQ+ films at various festivals, universities and cities across the world. KASHISH has developed close collaboration with more than 50 international film festivals around the world.

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To organize a screening at your college, office, city or event, write to us at partners.kashish@gmail.com

KASHISH Chalchitra Utsav A day long film festival showcasing the best Regional language LGBTQ+ films from across India. This initiative was launched in January 2018 as part of Mumbai Pride events, and is held every year.

KASHISH QDrishti Film Grant KASHISH QDrishti Film Grant is an initiative to encourage LGBTQ+ storytelling, especially to bring about greater visibility of South Asian LGBTQ+ narratives. This grant, sponsored by Lotus Visual Productions (a UK/India based production company) was launched in 2016 and has supported production of 5 films already. In 2021, the grant is specifically will be given to a LGBTQ+ identifying filmmaker.

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KASHISH ORGANIZERS

KASHISH Mumbai International Queer Film Festival is presented by KASHISH Arts Foundation, alongwith Solaris Pictures

KASHISH Arts Foundation is a not-for-profit public trust that aims to arrange and organize programs in the field of arts, culture, literature, theatre and films. It aims to create awareness and work for the Social, Cultural, Educational awakening of citizens of India who are marginalized on the basis of their gender identity, HIV status, transgenders and other sexual minorities.

Every year KASHISH Arts Foundation presents its flagship event KASHISH Mumbai International Queer Film Festival. It also organizes KASHISH Forward, a traveling campus LGBTQ+ film festival. The trust facilitates KASHISH Global, programming of Indian LGBTQ+ films at festivals worldwide, and Best of KASHISH, screening at various organizations and pride events across India. Since 2018 the trust also launched KASHISH Chalchitra Utsav, a regional language LGBTQ+ film festival.

SOLARIS PICTURES is the only Indian film production company focused on producing, distributing and exhibiting LGBTQ films. Its award winning films Breaking Free, Purple Skies, 68 Pages, Yours Emotionally!, Project Bolo and Gulabi Aaina (The Pink Mirror) have screened at more than 200 film festivals across the world and received great critical acclaim. They have laid the foundation for the nascent Indian LGBTQ queer film movement.

Solaris Pictures founded KASHISH Mumbai International Queer Film Festival in 2010 and has been the one of main organizer of the festival for the past 12 years. The festival carries forward Solaris Pictures mission of using cinema as a medium to advocate for equal rights and dignity for the LGBTQ community.

Solaris Pictures latest production Evening Shadows has been a big success garnering 24 awards and more than 75 international film festival screening. It had a limited theatrical release and is now streaming on Netflix.

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FESTIVAL PATRON

It is marvellous to see how KASHISH has grown over the last 12 years, but more important is its mainstream acceptance. Today KASHISH has become an important event in the mainstream cultural space in Mumbai.

LGBT persons are still looked on as different and in many societies as criminals. Movies are a great way of communication and breaking these stereotypes. I support KASHISH as it helps to extend understanding of people in the broadest possible way and deepen the sense of humanity by including people of alternate sexuality.

SHYAM BENEGAL Shyam Benegal is an iconic Indian director and screenwriter. With his first four feature films Ankur (1973), Nishant (1975), Manthan (1976) and Bhumika (1977) he was part of a new genre, which started the movement for Alternate cinema. His films Mandi, Junoon, Trikal, Sardari Begum, Zubeida are also considered masterpieces. Benegal was awarded the Padma Shri in 1976, the Padma Bhushan in 1991 and in 2007, he was awarded the highest award in Indian cinema for lifetime achievement, the Dadasaheb Phalke Award. He has won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi seven times.

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WELCOME NOTE

Sridhar Rangayan Festival Director

KASHISH 2021 is very unique, because once again for the second year in succession KASHISH has gone digital completely, for 12 days of film screenings spread over 3 long weekends. With the experience of hile it was a herculean task to move the festival online, it is also very heartening that we are able to open up the festival to the world. At the challenging times we are in, KASHISH 2020 Virtual offers a reason to celebrate our lives, and look ahead to a time when everyone will be able to live with dignity, and find the love and care they need in their lives.

This sentiment is echoed in this year’s theme – Unlock With Pride that encompasses the marginalized voices within the LGBTQIA+ community, and highlights stories around them. There are several films that focus on queer identities and sexualities that are largely hidden in mainstream narratives.

We are thankful to the __ filmmakers from ____ countries who have supported the festival by giving their films unconditionally to screen in the online edition, making KASHISH 2021 the largest ever online film festival in India, not just LGBTQ+. We are also happy to involve numerous international filmmakers in virtual Q&As that wouldn’t have been possible at a ground event.

We are also thankful to all the panelists from around the world who came on board for the 8 panel discussions that are premiering on our social media channels. They have enriched the discussions with their expertise and experiences.

Last but not the least, huge round of thanks and applause to the entire KASHISH festival team and volunteers, who have worked tirelessly, more than any other year, to bring out this virtual edition.

We are happy to announce that 60% of registration money we collect will be donated, after deduction of platform expenses, to 5 Indian organizationS working towards relief for the LGBTQ+ community, specially the Transgender community, during these challenging times.

So please show your support to KASHISH 2020 Virtual, and spread the good word.

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ADVISORY BOARD

A critically acclaimed award-winning filmmaker, Arunaraje passed out of the Film Institute of India with a gold medal in 1969 and was the first trained girl technician to join the industry. Some of her features are Shaque, Gehrayee, Situm, Rihaee, Bhairavi, Keh Do Na and Tum. Apart from teaching, she has been part of decision-making bodies in many film ARUNARAJE schools. She has served on many juries including National Film Awards and has been a strong voice for documentaries. She has won 5 National PATIL awards for her documentaries Mallika Sarabhai, A New Paradigm and Behind the Glass Wall. She has been a Landmark Forum Leader and has led transformational programs as a Life Coach.

DOLLY THAKORE

MEGHNA GHAI PURI

Dolly Thakore has worn many hats –starting her career on Radio, she became known as a News Reader on Bombay Doordarshan. And simultaneously, a writer of many personal columns, and reviewer of English and Hindi Films and Theatre – in almost every English daily and periodical of that time. She has been a Communications Consultant for numerous Corporate Houses. Her two passions have remained the stage and social Work. She has been part of the ensemble of actors of the hugely successful Vagina Monologues, which has been running for ten years. And between all this, she juggles her time with NGOS. Among others, currently she is the national coordinator for Laadli Girl Child Campaign media award.

Meghna Ghai Puri is the President of Whistling Woods International.

Promoted by filmmaker Subhash Ghai, Mukta Arts Limited & Film city Mumbai, Whistling Woods International is Asia’s largest Film, Television, Animation and Media Arts institute. She holds an advanced diploma in Communications, Advertising and Marketing and a BSc Honours degree in Business Management from Kings College, London. Earlier in her career she managed marketing and Business Development for Mukta Arts Ltd and was associated with films like Pardes, Taal, and Yaadein. She has been associated with key businesses in the Indian entertainment industry through prominent projects including the ambitious stage celebration of 100 years of Indian cinema – Cinema 100.

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ONIR

RENUKA SHAHANE

ROY WADIA

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Onir is an Indian filmmaker, producer, screenwriter and editor. He is best known for his films My Brother...Nikhil and I Am which won the Indian National Film awards for Best Film (Hindi). Born as Anirban Dhar in Samchi, Bhutan, Onir received a scholarship to study film editing at SFB/TTC in Berlin. He later returned to India and worked as an editor, scriptwriter, art director, music album producer and song/music video director. Together with Sanjay Suri, Onir started Anticlock Films, a production company that concentrates on promoting young directors and new ideas. His last release was Kuchh Bheege Alfaaz which is currently streaming on Netflix.

Onir has received the Diversity Award from Film Victoria Australia and La Trobe University at Indian Film Festival of Melbourne 2019.

Renuka Shahane is a popular actress in Indian theatre, television and film for the last 30 years. She is well-known for her role in the iconic Bollywood blockbuster Hum Aapke Hain Kaun?. She has received the Best Actress award for the film Aboli and the Star Screen Best Actress Awards for her roles in the TV series Imtihaan and Sailaab. Her first directorial feature film Rita was critically acclaimed, winning her the Best Director award in the 16th Nokia Star-Screen Awards 2010, and also received the best screenplay award at the 8th Pune International Film Festival, as well as the V Shantaram Award for Best Supporting Actress in 2010. Her latest feature film as director Tribhanga will be released on Netflix in 2021.

Roy Wadia hails from the Wadia Movietone family. His brother was the late filmmaker and gay activist Riyad Wadia (“Fearless: The Hunterwali Story”, “BOMgAY”). Roy worked at CNN for 12 years, helping launch and produce much of the global broadcaster’s Asia-Pacific news programming. In 2003, Roy switched careers by joining the World Health Organisation’s China office as its communications and advocacy officer, and in 2006 joined the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control in Vancouver. From 2010-2013, he was Executive Director of Heroes Project, the Bombay-based HIV NGO under the Gates Foundation’s Avahan programme. Roy currently is with the United Nations in Bangkok.

KASHISH 2021 AWARD CATEGORIES

55 films compete for a total cash award of Rs.1,90,000 in 9 film categories Best Narrative Feature The highest award at KASHISH is given to the best narrative feature. This category includes Indian and International narrative features completed after January 1, 2020 and having their Mumbai Premiere at KASHISH 2021.

It carries a certificate, an award trophy and a cash award of Rs.30,000 supported by KASHISH Arts Foundation Best Indian Narrative Short Indian narrative short films completed after January 1, 2020 and having their Mumbai Premiere at KASHISH 2021 compete for this award.

It carries a certificate, an award trophy and a cash award of Rs.25,000 supported by Anticlock Films Best International Narrative Short International narrative short films completed after January 1, 2020 and having their Mumbai Premier at KASHISH 2021 compete for this award.

It carries a certificate, an award trophy and a cash award of Rs.20,000 supported by KASHISH Arts Foundation Best Performance in a Lead Role Best performance by an actor – male, female or Trans* – in a lead role portraying an LGBTQIA+ character in any of the Narrative categories.

It carries a certificate, an award trophy and a cash award of Rs.20,000 supported by KASHISH Arts Foundation Best Screenplay Best Screenplay Award is awarded to the screenplay writer of the best original or adapted screenplay of a narrative feature film or narrative short film that is part of the competitive categories.

It carries a certificate, an award trophy and a cash award of Rs.15,000 instituted in the memory of renowned Marathi poet and author late Dr. Arvind Waman Kulkarni.

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K.F. Patil Unity in Diversity Award for Best Documentary Feature The best documentary feature award category includes Indian and International documentaries completed after January 1, 2020 and having their Mumbai Premiere at KASHISH 2021.

It carries a certificate, an award trophy and a cash prize of Rs.20,000 supported by the K.F. Patil Charitable Trust.

K.F. Patil Unity in Diversity Award for Best Documentary Short The best documentary short award category includes Indian and International documentary short films which are under 60 minutes, completed after January 1, 2020 and having their Mumbai Premiere at KASHISH 2021.

It carries a certificate, an award trophy and a cash prize of Rs.15,000 supported by the K.F. Patil Charitable Trust.

Best Student Shorts Award Short films made by students of film and media schools that are completed after January 1, 2020 and having their Mumbai Premiere at KASHISH 2021 compete for this award.

The award carries a certificate, an award trophy and a cash prize of Rs.20,000 supported by Whistling Woods International.

Riyad Wadia Award for Best Emerging Indian Filmmaker Narrative short films by an Indian filmmaker, residing in India, whose first or second short film, that are completed after January 1, 2020, playing at KASHISH 2021 are eligible for nomination to this award category.

The award carries a certificate, an award trophy and a cash prize of Rs.25,000 supported by Wadia Movietone Wendell Rodricks Best Poster Design This is an award given to the Best Poster Design to the winner chosen from an international poster design contest, and the winner chosen by late ace fashion designer Wendell Rodricks.

This award carries an award trophy and a cash prize of Rs.25,000 supported by Jerome Marrel, husband of late Wendell Rodricks KASHISH QDrishti Film Grant This is a film grant given to an Indian LGBTQIA+ filmmaker, based in India, to make a LGBTQIA+ narrative short film. The finalists will be selected through an open call for scripts and the winner picked in a pitching session.

This grant carries a cash sponsorship of Rs.2,00,000 sponsored by Lotus Visual Productions, alongwith mentorship by renowned screenwriters and other resources.

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FESTIVAL JURY - NARRATIVE

CARY RAJINDER SAWHNEY

GAURI SHINDE

RITESH BATRA

SATYA RAI NAGPAUL

Cary Rajinder Sawhney MBE is one of Europe’s best-known curators of Indian cinema. He is the Programming Director of Bagri Foundation London Indian Film Festival, which is one of the world’s largest South Asian film festivals, and has a pioneering LGBTQ+ programme. He is also an award winning short filmmaker. Cary formerly worked at the British Film Institute as Head of Diversity and Programme Adviser to the BFI London Film Festival. His career started as a professional photographer.

He is a member of the British Film Academy (BAFTA).

Gauri Shinde is a well-known Indian film director of advertising and feature films. Gauri made her feature film directorial debut with the highly acclaimed English Vinglish (2012) marking the comeback of late actress Sridevi. This film catapulted Gauri almost instantaneously into the A list of Feature Film Writer-Directors of India. In 2016 she wrote and directed the thought-provoking and very successful coming-of age drama Dear Zindagi (2016) starring Alia Bhatt and Shah Rukh Khan. In addition to writing and directing features, Gauri has been an ad-film director, with more than 100 ad films as well as 2 award winning shorts to her credit.

Gauri now runs Hope Productions, alongside her husband and fellow filmmaker R. Balki.

Ritesh Batra is a BAFTA Award nominated writer-director who was named one of Variety’s Ten Directors to Watch in 2017. His most recent film, Photograph, premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, and was released by Amazon Studios in May. His previous films include Our Souls at Night, starring Robert Redford and Jane Fonda, for Netflix, and The Sense of an Ending for BBC and FilmNation starring Jim Broadbent and Charlotte Rampling. Ritesh’s debut feature film, The Lunchbox, was supported by Sundance and premiered at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival where it won the Grand Rail d’Or. It was one of the best-reviewed films of the year, and nominated for the 2015 BAFTA Awards for “Best Film Not in the English Language”.

Satya Rai Nagpaul is an India-based cinematographer. He brings years of work in environmental and political documentary filmmaking, professional cinematography training at the Film & Television Institute of India [FTII], Pune, and working with ace Indian and visiting cinematographers, to his independent practise. Satya’s most recognised queer work is Hansal Mehta’s Aligarh. Satya won the National Award for cinematography in 2011 for his first feature film Gurvinder Singh’s Alms of the Blind Horse.

Pakistan’s 2013 entry to the Oscars after a gap of 50 years, Meenu Gaur and Farzad Nabi’s Zinda Bhaag, was photographed by Satya in Lahore.

In 2015, his film The Fourth Direction, Gurvinder’s second feature, was in

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competition at the Cannes Film Festival’s Uncertain Regard. In 2017, he won the Filmfare for Best Cinematography for this film, in the Punjabi edition of these awards. His 2020 release Ghoomketu, a Nawazuddin Siddiqui starrer, was one of the first OTT releases of 2020.

SELVAGGIA VELO

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Selvaggia Velo has studied at the University of Bologna, and achieved her Master Degree in Humanities, Department of Art, Cinema, Music and Theatre. Since 1998 she works with Indian cinema and on other cultural events in the fields of cinema, contemporary arts and music.

In 2001 she founded and directed the first film festival in the world - out of India - totally devoted to films from and about India, the River to River Florence Indian Film Festival. During the years, River to River has had Amitabh Bachchan, Shabana Azmi, Irrfan Khan, Deepa Mehta, Kabir Bedi, Aparna Sen, Anurag Kashyap and many others among its guests.

Selvaggia and the festival team are currently working on the 21st edition that will take place from 3 to 8 December 2021. She has been a member of International Juries and has curated film programmes and moderated panels in Europe and India.

FESTIVAL JURY - DOCUMENTARY

BINA PAUL

GARGI SEN

NANDAN SAXENA

Bina Paul graduated from the FTII, Pune and has worked mainly in Malayalam-language films. She has over fifty editing credits and has directed four documentaries. Her first editing work was in 1985 on Aravindan’s documentary The Seer Who Walks Alone and her first feature film work was on Abraham’s Amma Ariyan in 1986. Paul won her first National Film Award for Revathi’s Mitr, My Friend, which had an all-woman crew. Paul won Kerala State Film Awards for Venu’s Daya, Sarath’s Sayahnam, and Madhusudhanan’s Bioscope, and another National Film Award for Sarath’s Sthithi. Paul has been the Artistic Director of the International Film Festival of Kerala, and in 2017 she was a founding member of the “Women Collective in Cinema,” India’s first association working for equal opportunity for women in the film industry.

Bina curates extensively for film festivals around the world, with a focus on Indian Cinema. She is currently the Vice Chairperson of the Kerala State Chalachitra Academy.

Gargi Sen is a documentary filmmaker, curator, producer and distributor.

She studied Visual Communication and specialised in Exhibition Design at the National Institute of Design, as well as MA in Mass Communication Theory at the University of Leicester, UK. Gargi has directed over 22 documentaries, mentored documentary productions around the world, and served on film festival juries nationally and globally. In 2011 Gargi was awarded the prestigious International Clore Fellowship for Arts Leadership, UK. She completed a 5-month secondment with the Tate galleries, UK. In 2017 she was awarded the Fulbright Nehru Fellowship in the category of Academic and Professional Excellence in the Arts. She was a Fulbright scholar in residence at UC Davis, California, USA and taught and researched South Asian documentaries. Gargi is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, UK, and advisor on several cinema and education related initiatives in India and the world. Currently Gargi is working as a consultant with the National Gallery of Art, New Delhi.

Nandan Saxena is a story-teller, independent film-maker and Director of Photography with over 40 films to his credit, many of them featurelength. His camera creates layers of meaning like a painter wields his brush. His films have experimented with form, often entering the space of the creative documentary. His films – poignant portraits of these times, often blurring the thin line between documentary and cinema – have premiered at Thessaloniki and London (Film Festivals). Besides other awards, he has been honoured with the prestigious National Film Award three times for his films Cotton For My Shroud, Candles In The Wind And I Cannot Give You My Forest. He also mentors filmmaking workshops at film festivals and film schools.

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FESTIVAL JURY - STUDENTS SHORTS

DR. ANJALI MONTEIRO

KETKI PANDIT

VIVECK VASWANI

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Dr. Anjali Monteiro retired recently as Professor and Dean from the School of Media and Cultural Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, India. She is a documentary filmmaker, media researcher and teacher. Jointly with K.P. Jayasankar, she has made over 40 documentary films, many of which have been screened at film festivals, winning thirty-three awards. She writes on documentary film, media and cultural studies. She has co-authored the national award-winning book A Fly in the Curry: Independent Documentary Film in India and coedited the book DigiNaka: Subaltern Politics and Digital Media in PostCapitalist India. She has been a Fulbright Visiting Lecturer at UC Berkeley and an ICCR Visiting Professor at University of Technology Sydney, and a Howard Thomas Memorial Commonwealth fellow at University of Western Sydney. She has been active in campaigns against censorship.

Ketki Pandit is a writer, filmmaker and an Educator - a restless person who can’t help but create. An alumnus of New York University’s Tisch School of The Arts, and Film and TV Institute of India’s Screenplay writing Department, Ketki has made and worked on tons of shorts in many different capacities. But it’s in writing that she has dabbled the most, for that’s what she finds the scariest of all. Her writing credits include Mansha Ki Shaadi (2015), an award-winning Hindi solo one act play, Girl from Mars, a feature length Screenplay (finalist at NYU’s Sloan Feature Development Grant 2018-2019), and Clock In The Jungle (2021), a children’s picture book. She has been teaching screenwriting at FTII since 2009, and currently, she is the Honorary HOD and Course Mentor at FTII’s Screenplay Writing Department. Director and Co-Founder at Byqa.ink, Ketki is passionate about intimate, poetic storytelling that brings nuanced experiences across the gender spectrum alive on page, stage, and screen.

Viveck Vaswani is an Actor, Producer, Teacher, Writer, and the man who famously gave Shahrukh Khan his big break in Bollywood. An alumnus of Campion School and Cathedral and John Connon, Viveck started off with acting in India’s first TV soap opera Khandaan. He then produced a Marathi film called Kis Bai Kiss, and a major television serial called Nai Dishayen. He has acted in more than 100 films and numerous television shows. He has produced 13 films and 2 television shows.

Viveck Vaswani has been Advisor/ Consultant/ Strategist to a number of established companies as well as start-ups in the entertainment business. He teaches Live Action Production, and Documentary & Films at Pearl Academy, Mumbai campus. Additionally, he also serves on the advisory board of School of Media at Pearl Academy.

KASHISH 2021 WENDELL RODRICKS INTERNATIONAL POSTER DESIGN CONTEST Jérôme Marrel, partner of fashion designer Wendell Rodricks, continues his legacy

WENDELL RODRICKS & JÉRÔME MARREL

AJOY KUMAR DAS

The winner for the KASHISH 2021 Wendell Rodricks International Poster Design Contest for the 12th KASHISH Mumbai International Queer Film Festival was picked by Jérôme Marrel, husband of late Wendell Rodricks, who was the jury member. Mumbai based graphic designer Ajoy Kumar Das’ design was picked as the winner. This is the second time Ajoy Kumar Das is winning the coveted contest, having won it in 2016.

Jérôme Marrel said about why he chose this winner, “I have picked this design as the winning design as it is very minimal, but carries the message clearly. Wendell was the guru of minimalism in fashion so it carries forward his legacy as well. And I am sure it would have been his choice.”

Ajoy Kumar Das design was selected from around 50 submissions received from such diverse segments - from a 16 year old student in Bangalore to a 45 year old homemaker in Coimbatore; from countries as diverse as Greece, France and Malaysia, and cities within India as diverse as the 3 metros Mumbai, New Delhi and Chennai to cities like Bangalore, Pune, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kurukshetra, Ghaziabad and Bhubaneshwar!

Ajoy Kumar Das, the winner, said, “For the past year, ‘Unlock’ has become a familiar word used by people worldwide. When I saw the theme for this year, ‘Unlock with Pride,’ the idea resonated very strongly with me.

I knew this is a tough competition as the festival poster would receive submissions across the globe. And yet, I wanted to share my ideas for a movement that needs all the support it can get. I attempted to design a minimalist poster yet meaningful. Happy that my entry has been selected for the second time. My good wishes to all the participants and KASHISH 2021 film festival.”

Reacting to the choice of the winning entry Sridhar Rangayan, festival director, said “Jury member Jérôme Marrel indeed had a tough choice to make this year as most of the designs received were brilliant. But his choice of Ajoy Kumar Das’ design is very apt since it reflects this year’s festival theme perfectly.”

The winner will receive a cash award of Rs.25,000, supported by Jérôme Marrel, husband of late Wendell Rodricks, and a KASHISH butterfly trophy. The winning design will be used on all the KASHISH 2021 collaterals.

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FILMS IN COMPETITION Narrative Features 

Documentary Features 

Documentary Shorts 

Indian Narrative Shorts 

International Narrative  Shorts

1. ADVENT OF MARY

1. A WORM IN THE HEART

1. GRACE

1. ARE WE THERE YET

1. A BRONX STORY

2. FIREBIRD

2. CANELA

2. LIVE, DANCE, POSE

2. BEGUM PARVATHI

2. THE ACT

3. FORGOTTEN ROADS

3. I AM HERE - WE ARE HERE TOGETHER

3. NOTHING BUT HUMAN NOT DIE

3. CLOSETS

3. APRIL'S LAST MEMORIES

4. THE MAN WITH THE ANSWERS

4. PRIDE & PROTEST

4. OUT LOUD

4. INSIDE (AKAM)

4. THE DANCE OF THE STARLING

5. VERSUS

5. PRINCE OF DREAMS

5. TOWARDS HOPE

5. KEEP PUNCHING

5. FABIU

6. REBEL DYKES

6. TRACING UTOPIA

6. THE LONELY PRINCE

6. LIFT OFF

2

Riyad Wadia Award for Best Emerging Indian Filmmaker



7. LILAC-FINAL

13. THE LAST ROMANTICS OF THE WORLD

3. DRIFTING

9. POLYGRAPH

1. ARE WE THERE YET

8. ONLY HUMAN

14. THE SILENCE OF THE RIVER

4. ELAGABALUS

10. THE ROOFTOP

2. BEGUM PARVATHI

9. PINK & BLUE

15. WHAT IF

5. THE FAIRY TALE

11. SHIKANDI

3. INSIDE

6. JULKA & JULIE

12. TODAY

4. PAUL 10

10. SAND LAND

 Students Film in Competition 11. SNAKE

1. BRIDESMAID

7. ON A PATH

12. STRAY DOGS COME OUT IN THE NIGHT

2. COMPLICATED

8. PILE OF SALT

5. SHIVANUM MOHINIYUM

AUG

19 OPENING FILM

THU

9.00PM

NO HARD FEELINGS (Futur Drei) Dir: Faraz Shariat 92 min | 2020 | Germany | German, Persian, Arabic, English Parvis, the son of exiled Iranians, copes with life in his small hometown by indulging himself with pop culture, Grindr dates, and raves. After being caught shoplifting, he is sentenced to community service at a refugee shelter where he meets siblings Banafshe and Amon, who have fled Iran. As a romantic attraction between Parvis and Amon grows, the fragile relationship between the three is put to a test. They find and lose each other throughout a summer of fleeting youth, an intense first love, an attempt at a joint future, as well as the stark realisation that, in Germany, they are not equal.

Note: This film is available only for audiences in India.

Post screening Q&A can be viewed online at KASHISH YouTube Channel, and on KASHISH Facebook page.

Festivals & Honors: • World Premiere: Berlin IFF 2020 – Panorama • 2nd Place Panorama Audience Award Winner - Berlin IFF 2020 • Teddy Award for Best Queer Feature Film; Teddy Readers Award - Berlin IFF 2020 • BFI Flare: London LGBTQ+ Film Festival 2020 • Special Jury Prize - Premio Maguey - Guadalajara IFF 2020 • Frameline San Francisco International LGBTQ FF 2020 • Grand Jury Prize for Best Screenplay - Outfest 2020 • Cinematography Award - Image et Nation Montreal GLFF 2020 • Main Jury Award for Best Feature Film - Mezipatra Queer FF 2020 • Best First Feature - Inside Out LGBT 2020 Growing up in Cologne the son of exiled Iranis, FARAZ SHARIAT studied media art to explore his experiences as a gay, second generation migrant: detached from the family migration history his parents have recorded on VHS tapes, and lacking words to talk to them about his identity. In his work, Faraz re-inhabits this history and builds a visual archive of migration in Germany.

Faraz Shariat

39

AUG

SHORT FILMS PACKAGE

20 INTERNATIONAL NARRATIVE SHORTS COMPETITION – I FRI

PROGRAM

01

Total Duration: 86 min

The first part of this year’s nominations for the Best International Narrative Short Film award showcases six heartwarming stories from across the queer rainbow with one common emotion – ‘love and belongingness’.

Post screening Q&A can be viewed online at KASHISH YouTube Channel, and on KASHISH Facebook page.

WHAT IF? Dir: Teresa Garratty 10 min | 2020 | UK | English Sign Language After a bad break-up, Jess focuses on rebuilding her life and her self esteem. Dating someone new might help, but what if it all goes wrong?

Only one way to find out.

SNAKE Dir: Andrey Volkashin 20 min | 2020 | The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia | Macedonian A bitter-sweet story about an unusual friendship between a nine year old daredevil Mario and an eccentric gay man Borche, challenged by the prejudices and hatred of the parents in a remote Macedonian small town.

SAND LAND Dir: Iven Tu 12 min | 2020 | Canada | English Charlie struggles every day, trying to get over the loss of his partner. One morning, he follows the apparition of his deceased partner to the ocean, where he almost drowns.

40

PINK & BLUE Dir: Carmen LoBue 10 min | 2021 | USA | English After a surprise first-time pregnancy, a Trans couple of color wrestles with how the new baby will affect their relationship and how to raise a child in a binary world.

LIFT OFF Dir: Sia Shin 21 min | 2020 | Republic of Korea | Korean A queer love story of dancers Su-gi and Yeonjae.

THE DANCE OF STARLING

(El baile del estornino)

Dir: Bárbara Fdez 13 min | 2020 | Spain | Spanish An elderly man recalls his discreet relationship that runs through the streets of Madrid in the 80s. All he is left with now is the aching memory of his boyfriend who disappeared without a trace, and the letters that he wrote to him, but could never reach him.

41

AUG

SHORT FILMS PACKAGE

20 DISCOVERING WITH PRIDE FRI

Total Duration: 90 min

PROGRAM

02

It’s always good to turn back and discover about those who toiled to pave the path for us, and their stories of resilience. What could be a fitting ‘Thank You’ than to acknowledge their legacy with Pride and not to let that be lost into oblivion!

This package is a collection of four moving short documentaries about the achievements and hardships of the generation before us.

NAOMI REPLANSKY AT 100 Dir: Megan Rossman 7min | 2020 | USA | English | Documentary Short This short documentary shares wisdom from the renowned American poet as she celebrated her 100th year in 2018. Replansky currently lives in New York City with her partner, the writer Eva Kollisch.

TAKE ME TO PROM Dir: Andrew Moir 21 min | 2019 | Canada | English | Documentary Short Featuring the high school prom stories of queer people aged 17 to 88, ‘Take Me To Prom’ captures 70 years of LGBTQ social progress through this adolescent milestone.

THE MANY PINK TRIANGLES (El baile del estornino) Dir: Luca Gaetano 28 min | 2020 | Italy, Argentina, Chile, Spain, Uruguay | Spanish | Documentary Short A video documentation of the LGBTI communities around Spain, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay who have suffered persecution, prison and torture for their sexual condition under different military dictatorships in recent decades.

42

SORRY WE MISSED YOU Dir: Craig Bettendorf 34 min | 2020 | USA | English | Documentary Short "Sorry We Missed You" is a series about underthe-radar changemakers. The pilot episode is about John Boswell, a Catholic LGBTQ historical researcher, who was a professor at Yale University. Narrated through live footage with television reports and newspaper articles the episode highlights the importance of Boswell's contributions and paints a picture of the pushback that happened because of the dialogue his textbooks brought about regarding the church and acceptance of homosexuality.

With a recent survey concluding that 20% of the millennial population identifies as LGBT, Boswell’s work clearly benefited many.

43

20 FRI

PROGRAM

03

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

AUG

A WORM IN THE HEART Dir: Paul Rice 88 min | 2020 | Russia, Ireland, USA | Russian, English | Documentary Feature | In Competition Shot in six cities along the Trans-Siberian Railway, this gripping doc follows gay couple Paul Rice and Liam Jackson Montgomery as they embark upon a tense journey to detail the lives and stories from the LGBTQ+ community across Russia, meeting with Nobel Peace prize nominees, drag queens, and ordinary folks who have suffered brutal homophobic attacks.

Note: This film is available only for audiences in India.

Post screening Q&A can be viewed online at KASHISH YouTube Channel, and on KASHISH Facebook page Festivals & Honors: • World Premiere: Santa Barbara International Film Festival 2020 • Best Documentary Jury + Audience Award - Miami OUTshine Film Festival 2020 • Best Documentary Feature - Imageout Rochester 2020 • Irish Premiere: Virgin Media Dublin International Film Festival 2021

PAUL RICE is an art director and filmmaker originally from Ireland, currently based in California. He has worked extensively in Dublin, London and San Francisco for agencies and creative studios as an art director or lead creative on award-winning commercial projects for culture, fashion, and music brands. A Worm in the Heart is his feature film directorial debut.

Paul Rice

44

SHORT FILMS PACKAGE MY RAINBOW WONDER YEARS! Total Duration: 62 min

AUG

20 FRI

PROGRAM

04

Be it in a film or a novel, coming-of-age stories are everyone’s all-time favorite. If these are about queer people then we can relate more to those new experiences and feelings of growing up, that were as enthralling as might be filled with anxious moments. Here is a package of five coming-of-age films with simple and enriching stories that can transport you back to your ‘wonder years’!

THE NEST (El Nido) Dir: Fernando Campos 14 min | 2019 | Chile | Spanish | Narrative Short After witnessing a homophobic attack at his school, Elías tells his parent that he is also gay.

When his cry for help gets unanswered, he starts to wonder about his family’s acceptance of him.

HOT CHIPS Dir: Stella Taylor 7 min | 2020 | New Zealand | English | Narrative Short It’s Olive’s first day at a new school and mean girl Nina is quick to bully Olive for having two mothers. Fortunately, the quirky outcast, Frankie stands up to this injustice, making Nina aware of her unacceptable behaviour.

DISTRESS (El Desconcierto) Dir: Javier Rodriguez Espinosa 17 min | 2019 | Spain | Spanish | Narrative Short 15-year-old Andrés has disappeared. The cops are investigating at his school. While his classmates hush the jokes he was constantly subjected to, his teachers say they do not know anything. The film questions the peer-pressures and conflicts among adolescents.

45

SOLSTICE Dir: Gala Díaz 16 min | 2019 | Spain | Spanish | Narrative Short Martina as usual, is spending the summer holidays with her mum, her brother and family friends. But this year will be different because Martina will discover something that will turn upside down her reality.

THE ODYSSEY Dir: Emmanuelle Mattana 7 min | 2021 | Australia | English | Narrative Short Zoom class finally gets interesting for Kiki when she discovers that her computer screen doubles as a portal into her crush's bedroom. A reflection on young queer love, the fantasies we create in our heads, and the lengths we go to feel connected during isolation, this kids’ comedy short is sure to put a smile on your face.

46

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

AUG

20 FRI

PROGRAM

05

I AM HERE - WE ARE HERE TOGETHER Dir: Tomoya Asanuma 60 min | 2020 | Japan | Japanese | Documentary Feature | In Competition While each of us have the right to live with dignity and respect but somehow persons with GID (gender identity disorder) and GD (Gender dysphoria ), and Transgender persons are always treated as if they don’t exist. They are often discriminated against and judged as some kind of perverts and weirdos. Through various interviews with GID/GD/Transgender people the documentary explores the reality of the Japanese transgender community and the problems they face on a daily basis. It also discusses the issues caused by the restrictive requirements of the Gender Identity Disorder Special Cases Act, the law that allows changing of legal sexes.

Post screening Q&A can be viewed online at KASHISH YouTube Channel, and on KASHISH Facebook page.

Tomoya Asanuma

TOMOYA ASANUMA is an FTM transgender and an upcoming filmmaker from Soja, Okayama, Japan. He represents Trans Voice In Japan [TVIJ], an organization that aims to create a safe and secure place for sexual minorities with mental health issues. While his job is of a nurse, he also passionately works on writings and giving lectures to improve the life of transgender people in Japan. I Am Here - We Are Here Together marks his directorial debut.

47

20 FRI

PROGRAM

06

NARRATIVE FEATURE

AUG

BRIHONNOLA Dir: Dibyadoot Roy Chowdhury 108 min | 2018 | India | Bengali, Hindi | Narrative Feature Since her childhood Mahi witnessed her father’s anger on her mother because of giving birth to her. She grows up confused about her identity, whether she is a girl or a boy.

After losing her parents Mahi becomes a victim of human trafficking. Somehow she lands up in a Kinnar gharana (communal household of Indian transgender persons), where she meets Shimli, another victim of the societal reality. One day along the railway tracks Mahi discovers a baby girl who is abandoned by her guardians. Mahi starts realizing motherhood feelings for her, but destiny has something else in store.

Post screening Q&A can be viewed online at KASHISH YouTube Channel, and on KASHISH Facebook page.

Festivals & Honors: • Lift-Off Sessions @ Pinewood Studios 2019

Dibyadoot Roy Chowdhury

48

DIBYADOOT ROY CHOWDHURY is a Kolkata based filmmaker. He has been passionate about films and theatre from a very tender age and has a theatre experience of 61/2 years. His urge for creation made him start his own production company Ak Onko Productions. Since then he has been making short films and music videos. Few of his short films have also won awards and recognition at film festivals. Brihonnola is his debut feature film, produced by his own production company.

Preceded By

THE OUTCASTED Dir: Gautami Purushottam Berde 8 min | 2021 | India | Hindi, Marathi, English | Documentary Short The Outcasted raises concerns about the mental, physical and sexual health issues faced by the ‘Third Gender of India' - the social determinants that affect Transgender Health in India as a result of social rejection. The film also highlights the noble work of two Indian NGOs that work for providing Health care services to the Transgender community in India.

49

20 FRI

PROGRAM

07

NARRATIVE FEATURE

AUG

THE MAN WITH THE ANSWERS (O Anthropos Me Tis Apantiseis) Dir: Stelios Kammitsis 80 min | 2021 | Cyprus, Greece, Italy | English, Greek, German, Italian | Narrative Feature | In Competition Everything changes suddenly for Victor, a Greek ex-diving champion in his early 20’s, when his grandmother, whom he lives with, dies. He decides to leave for Germany in a dusty old car. On the ferryboat to Italy he meets Matthias, a young charming German man, who is going back home and convinces Victor to take him along. As they drive north, Matthias pushes Victor to come out of his comfort zone and reveal the real reasons for his trip. When their journey will come to an end, through the unpredictable turns of life, will their questions find the answers they so much long for?

Note: This film is available only for audiences in India.

Post screening Q&A can be viewed online at KASHISH YouTube Channel, and on KASHISH Facebook page.

Festivals & Honors: • World Premiere: Queer Screen - Mardi Gras Film Festival, Australia 2021 • Melbourne Queer Film Festival 2021 • Roze Filmdagen, Amsterdam, Netherlands 2021 • US Premiere: Santa Barbara International Film Festival 2021 • Los Angeles Greek Film Festival 2021 • Fire!! Mostra Internacional de Cinema Gai i Lesbià de Barcelona 2021 • Lovers Film Festival, Italy 2021

Stelios Kammitsis

50

The Cypriot director STELIOS KAMMITSIS studied Cinema at SUNY Purchase in New York. After completing his studies, he moved to Athens where he worked alongside Greek cinema's master Theo Angelopoulos and choreographer Dimitris Papaioanou for the show Medea. His first feature film Jerks was released in 2012, while his following LGBTQI short film Downhill (2015) was awarded by various international film festivals. The Man With The Answers is his second feature film.

AUG

SHORT FILMS PACKAGE

21

ON THE BRINK

SAT

Total Duration: 103 min

PROGRAM

This selection of six short films underlines the prejudice, jealously, hatred and violence that LGBTQIA people around the world are subjected to - not just from the society, but many a times from their own families and loved ones.

These narratives may make you feel edgy, but they are also a wake-up call to reflect.

01

EGGSHELLS Dir: Slava Doytcheva 16 min | 2020 | Bulgaria | Bulgarian On Easter day, when her girlfriend picks family over her, Nevena dyes two red eggs and sets on a journey to meet her own estranged father.

ÃH (‫)آه‬ Dir: Alex El Dahdah 15 min | 2020 | Lebanon | Arabic Malek, a young man born into a Lebanese feudalist family, is living a secret love story with the man of his dreams. Facing fierce opposition from the matriarch of the family, Malek strives to hold onto his own identity. The hopes, fears, longings and desires of Malek and his lover unfold in a surrealist tale of frustrated love.

FACE Dir: Vahid Kordloo 18 min |2020 | Islamic Republic of Iran | Persian A 50-year-old man living with his two children intends to change his gender, after years of struggle.

51

MERMAID Dir: Saber Mostafapour 14 min | 2019 | Islamic Republic of Iran | Persian Milad abandons home and school to preserve his trans identity, and having nowhere to go starts to live in ruins. Three classmates, who are tired of Milad’s absence, secretly follow Milad only to find their classmate in a feminine appearance.

MADONNA F64.0 Dir: Stavros Markoulakis 18 min | 2020 | Greece | Modern Greek After an important surgery, Maria returns to her family home to recover. Living with her mother, her sister and a baby, Maria finds herself struggling with a newborn desire.

PARCHED RETURN (Volta Seca) Dir: Roberto Veiga 22 min | 2019 | Brazil | Portuguese 30 years after leaving, Marieta returns to the village she was born in, Volta Seca. Traversing through familiar landscapes, she dives headfirst into retrieving memories of her youth, seeking the true spirit of this journey.

52

SHORT FILMS PACKAGE STUDENT SHORTS COMPETITION – I Total Duration: 79 min

AUG

21 SAT

PROGRAM

02

The first part of short films made by students of media colleges across the world showcases four films with a unique and dynamic interpretation of queer life stories.

Post screening Q&A with the Student Filmmakers can be viewed online at KASHISH YouTube Channel, and on KASHISH Facebook page.

THE FAIRY TALE

Dir: Seung jae Lee 15 min | 2020 | South Korea | Korean Hyun-woo confesses to Eun-jung but gets rejected. Then, Eun-jung hands Hyun-woo a fairy tale book… Hyun-woo gradually learns about the secret of Eun-jung.

College: Chung-Ang University’s film department, South Korea

COMPLICATED Dir: Isak Kohaly 22 min | 2020 | Israel | Hebrew Itamar, a chubby and depressed young man, returns to his childhood home in the suburbs following a mental breakdown. As he struggles to get better under the care of his quirky and overprotective mother, old tensions about his sexual orientation arise – especially when he meets Ronen, a handsome lifeguard who leads him to confront his body image issues.

College: The Steve Tisch School of Film and Television, Tel-Aviv University, Israel

53

PILE OF SALT

Dir: Marc Camardons 17 min | 2020 | Spain | Spanish Mateo, a seminarian, lives a simple life dedicated to God. His vision of the world, his ideals and his beliefs will be upset when he meets Salvador, another seminarian, who shows him the world in a different way.

College: Escola Superior de Cinema i Audiovisuals de Catalunya (ESCAC) Cinema and Audiovisual School of Catalonia, Terrassa, Barcelona, Spain

THE ROOFTOP Dir: Teng Po-Cheng 19 min | 2020 | Taiwan | Chinese “Does your body belong to you?” A teenager boy tries to find out the reason why he has difficulties in breathing when he makes love with his girlfriend.

College: Graduate School of Applied Media Arts (Department of Radio and Television from) National Taiwan University of Arts

54

AUG

SHORT FILMS PACKAGE

21

BODIES & DESIRES

SAT

Total Duration: 71 min

PROGRAM

03

If Body is an inseparable aspect of our being, Desire is one of the most inevitable attributes that we humans possess. The feeling of wanting something, or wanting to be something, makes our lives worth living and exciting, but at times it also puts our bodies in a vulnerable spot. A mix package of five intense, bold and quirky films reiterating this interrelation between desires and vulnerabilities that our body experiences.

DON’T BE A DICK!

Dir: Amir Ovadia Steklov 9 min | 2020 | Germany | English | Animation Short A quirky animation investigating the representation of male body image across history and modern porn culture. With humour and shocking facts, it tries to answer the most pertinent question about the obsession for the penis size.

MOTTA Dir: Nish Gera 16 min | 2020 | UK | Portuguese | Documentary Short Bound in flowers, a tattooed hand strokes a face. Ropes unwind on the floor. Tremors of pain, tremors of release. What do you desire?

Motta follows ‘hard to classify’ Brazilian artist Fabio da Motta as he questions the boundaries between fantasy, power, provocation and art.

TICKING BOXES Dir: Robert Metson 9 min | 2020 | UK | English | Narrative Short Matt, a closeted bisexual male, feels he has life figured out by following the status quo, but the illusion of his idyllic life begins to crumble when he meets Ryan, a well-sorted pansexual person.

55

CHEAP THRILLS

Dir: Candra Aditya 24 min | 2021 | Indonesia | Indonesian | Narrative Short Behind the closed doors of a hotel room two strangers hook up and open up about their desires, and does being gay in the largest Muslim country in the world make them vulnerable.

PERSONALS Dir: Sasha Agirov 13 min | 2020 | Canada | English | Narrative Short When an encounter at a glory hole sparks an unexpected connection, two socially anxious loners must risk vulnerability to find the intimacy they yearn for.

56

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

AUG

21 SAT

PROGRAM

04

AHEAD OF THE CURVE Dirs: Jen Rainin, Rivkay Beth Medow 97 min | 2020 | USA | English | Documentary Feature | In Competition In 1990, with a fist full of credit cards, a lucky run at the horse track, and chutzpah for days, Franco Stevens launched Curve, the best-selling lesbian magazine ever published.

Ahead of the Curve tracks the power of lesbian visibility and community from the early ’90s to the present day through the story of Franco’s founding of Curve magazine.

Decades later, in the wake of a disabling injury, Franco learns that Curve will fold within the year, and questions the relevance of the magazine in the face of accelerating threats to LGBTQ+ community. To forge a path forward, Franco reaches out to women working in today’s queer spaces to understand what queer women need today, and how Curve can continue to serve the community.

Note: This film is available only for audiences in India.

Post screening Q&A can be viewed online at KASHISH YouTube Channel, and on KASHISH Facebook page.

Festivals & Honors: • World Premiere: Frameline 44 San Francisco Int’l LGBTQ Film Festival 2020 • Winner Audience Award - Austin Gay & Lesbian Int’l Film Festival 2020 • Winner Audience Award -Barcelona Int’l Gay & Lesbian Film Festival 2021 • Winner Jury Award - Image + Nation LGBT Montreal Film Festival 2020 • Winner Audience Award - Out Film CT 2020 • Winner Audience Award - Tampa Int’l Gay & Lesbian Film Festival 2020 JEN RAININ focuses her filmmaking on building community, deepening understanding of social justice issues, and telling great stories. Ahead Of The Curve is her directorial debut and the inaugural film for Frankly Speaking Films, she has founded with Rivkah Beth Medow in 2020 to produce media that centers strong LGBTQ+ women and non-binary people to increase visibility and spark change.

Jen Rainin & Rivkah Beth Medow

RIVKAH BETH MEDOW produces and directs character-driven films around social and ecological themes that build community. Her credits include Sons Of A Gun (2009; PBS), Being George Clooney (2016; Netflix), and The Nine by Katy Grannan (2016, Festivals).

57

AUG

SHORT FILMS PACKAGE

21 INDIAN MASALA MIX 1 SAT

PROGRAM

05

Total Duration: 69 min

One of the most anticipated short films package of Indian short films, which showcases some remarkable Indian LGBTQIA+ films of the year. The first part showcases four films mocking and challenging the norms that the society, and sometimes even the LGBTQ+ people too, consider as a way out to mask their identity.

THE FIRST WEDDING Dir: Akshay Parvatkar 8 min | 2020 | Marathi, English When Bhumi and Akash fall in love and decide to get married, an unheard union in a world of otherwise only same sex couples; they realize what is to be on the other side of the fence!

SHIVANUM-MOHINIYUM Dir: Ramakaushalyan Ramakrishnan 20 min | 2020 | Tamil | In Competition Growing up around the myths and legends that has been passed down the generations, a rural theatre actor finally discovers the reality of religion as he surrenders to his love.

LOVE KNOWS NO GENDER Dir: Shivankar Arora 20 min | 2020 | Hindi Why there is always a prince and a princess?

Why two princesses cannot marry? This short film is about a girl who is set to be married.

Following the society norms, she is afraid to tell her family that she loves her best friend, that she is a lesbian. What happens when the news comes out on the day of the marriage?

After all, 'We don't fall in love with the gender, we fall in love with a person.'

58

MUHURTORA - BOUQUET OF MOMENTS Dir: Sandipan Das 21 min | 2020 | Bengali For a job interview in Kolkata, Sayan comes to stay at his childhood friend Dibu’s home.

Spending time together sparks off their past intimacy. But can they actually be together or do they have to live the rest of their lives just cherishing those moments!

59

21 SAT

PROGRAM

06

NARRATIVE CENTERPIECE

AUG

WALK WITH ME Dir: Isabel del Rosal 112 min | 2021 | USA | English | Narrative Feature A young mother Amber (Devin Dunne Cannon) braves the decision to leave a long but worn out relationship with her husband to start a life in which she can finally find her own footing in the world and within herself. Soon, Amber meets Logan (Bridget Barkan). What starts out as a close friendship quickly lends itself to romance. Amidst all the changes in her life, now Amber has to come to terms with this new sexual identity — one her oldschool mother, Grace (Nikki James), is less than thrilled about.

Set in Brooklyn, NY, indie film Walk With Me is a gently-paced emotional drama about love, finding yourself, finding your person, being a parent, and being visible.

Post screening Q&A can be viewed at KASHISHfilmfest YouTube Channel, and Facebook page.

Festivals & Honors: • USA Premiere: Cinequest Film & VR Festival 2021 • Honorable Mention - Wicked Queer Boston's LGBTQ Film Festival 2021 • OUT Shine LGBTQ+ Film Festival 2021 • Inside Out, Toronto LGBT Film Festival 2021 • Brooklyn Film Festival 2021 • Manhattan Film Festival 2021 • OUTSOUTH Queer Film Festival • Madrid International Film Festival 2021

Isabel del Rosal

60

ISABEL DEL ROSAL is a Cuban-American writer, director and editor, who after making two short films, took some time off to raise and school her children.

Isabel runs her own business creating video content for startups. She wrote and directed two seasons of the comedic web series, Smile for the Camera.

Walk With Me (as writer/director/editor) is her debut feature film and labor of love. Isabel is writing her next feature script Seen, a haunting ghost story about love, grief and second chances.

NARRATIVE FEATURE

AUG

21 SAT

PROGRAM

07

BREAKING FAST Dir: Mike Mosallam 92 min | 2019 | USA | English, Arabic | Narrative Feature Set against the twinkling lights of West Hollywood, Breaking Fast is a romantic comedy that follows Mo (Haaz Sleiman), a practicing Muslim still reeling from heartbreak. When an All-American guy named Kal (Michael Cassidy) offers to join him in his nightly Iftars the traditional meal eaten by Muslims during Ramadan - meal after meal, the two start to discover they have more in common than meets the eye.

Note: This film is available only for audiences in India.

Post screening Q&A can be viewed at KASHISHfilmfest YouTube Channel, and Facebook page.

Festivals & Honors: • World Premiere: Cinequest Film & Creativity Festival 2020 JAN • Frameline44 Pride Showcase special 2020 • Los Angeles Premiere: Outfest Fusion 2020 • Centerpiece Selection: qFLIX Philadelphia 2020 • Wicked Queer: The Boston LGBT Film Festival 2020 • Audience Award - All Genders, Lifestyles & Identities (aGLIFF) Film Festival 2020 • Grand Jury Award + Best of American Spectrum - Indy Film Fest 2020 • Inside Out LGBT Film Festival Ontario, Canada 2020 • Opening Night Film - Reeling: The Chicago LGBT Int'l Film Festival 2020 • Audience Award (Best Feature) + Jury Award (Best Screenplay) - Long Beach Q Film Festival 2020

Mike Mosallam

MIKE MOSALLAM is a director, writer, producer for theatre, film and television.

His feature film debut, Breaking Fast played at more than 65 festivals worldwide and won 18 jury & audience awards. Through his production company, Mike Mosallam Productions, he and his team produced short films: Breaking Fast (Cannes Film Festival) and Brothers (11x Award Winner), both written and directed by Mike, along with the short film Ubuntu. He is the creator and CoExecutive-Producer of the critically acclaimed TLC series, All-American Muslim.

Most recently, Mike was Executive Creative Consultant on Season 2 of Hulu's Ramy (episode 9). Currently he is writing his second feature loosely based on a true story.

61

AUG

SHORT FILMS PACKAGE

22 DOCUMENTARY SHORTS COMPETITION 1 SUN

PROGRAM

01

Total Duration: 100 min

First part of the ‘In Competition’ under 60 minutes documentary films offers three up-close & personal stories of LGBTQIA+ people who dared to swim upstream and challenge the prevailing stereotypes – eventually creating the well deserved space for themselves, and also a better understanding about LGBTQIA+ community at large.

Post screening Q&A can be viewed online at KASHISH YouTube Channel, and on KASHISH Facebook page.

TOWARDS HOPE (Kasiyoli) Dir: Bhargav Lahkar 43 min | 2020 | India, USA | Assamese, English Life journey of Queer activist Milin Dutta - a conversation based visual documentation narrates the roller coaster of emotional joyride that Dutta have been through in his life. This film is personal and social at the same time - as Dutta narrates the pre and post stages of his transition period and how that become one of the best decisions of his life. From "Mili" to "Milin" the most challenging and determining phase of Dutta's life.

NOTHING BUT A HUMAN Dir: Swati Jaiswal 45 min | 2020 | India | English, Hindi The journey of Hiten Noonwal, a young Gender Fluid artist and also a proud member of LGBTQ+ community, started very young. He grew up in a village situated at the Haryana-Delhi border in a Haryanvi family. From designing dressing for Local Ramleela Cosplay of his village, to reaching NID Ahmedabad as an Apparel Design student, showed him a way to use his artistic talent to not only express himself through his art, but also to use it as a weapon to fight his social battle and bring awareness in the society.

62

LIVE, DANCE, POSE

(Vive, Baila, Posa)

Dir: Valentina Riveiro Moreira 12 min| 2020 | Spain | Spanish An underground scene that has been surviving for decades with origin in the United States, has landed in Spain: the Ballroom is here to stay and continues to function as a safe space for the LGTBIQ + community. Its protagonists will introduce us to this underworld and their personal stories in which we will see how it has influenced their lives.

Note: This film is available only for audiences in India.

63

AUG

SHORT FILMS PACKAGE

22 RECEDING RAINBOWS SUN

PROGRAM

02

Total Duration: 48 min

In 2016 Azerbaijan was ranked as the worst country in Europe for LGBTI population in the annual review of International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA). Four years later, in 2020 ILGA Europe again declared Azerbaijan the worst country for LGBTI rights, with the country falling from the score of 5% to just 2% on a scale where zero indicates gross human rights violations and 100 percent is the greatest degree of equality under the law. Turkey followed with a score of 4%.

This mix package of three films underlines the prejudice and discrimination faced by transgender people in Azerbaijan and Turkey. Let’s hope this situation soon improves, and the Rainbow flag will fly high there too.

I DO NOT BELONG IN THIS BODY Dir: Parviz Majidov 12 min | 2019 | Azerbaijan | Azerbaijani | Documentary Short Devran, a 23-year-old transman, left his home in western Azerbaijan to seek hormonal therapy for gender adaptation surgery in the capital city Baku as more options are available there. Still Devran has to face prejudice and discrimination as not many doctors or health clinics are willing to treat transgender people, even for basic medical treatment.

62-84, I DIDN'T COPY THAT, HQ

(62-84 Anlaşılmadı Merkez)

Dir: Timucin Ipekusta 15 min | 2020 | Turkey | Arabic | Narrative Short Lives that get united and get threatened in a single night... a woman who is running away because she was subjected to domestic violence by her husband, a trans woman trying to hold on to life by cooking, and an illegal immigrant who is at the edge of suicide.

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ALL MONSTERS ARE HUMAN Dirs: Helen Spooner, Hugh Davies 21 min | 2019 | UK, Azerbaijan, Turkey | Azerbaijani | Documentary Short In September 2017 police carried out brutal attacks against the LGBT community in Azerbaijan. Dozens of people were arrested and subsequently tortured and raped in prison. Through animation and narratives, this documentary tells the plight of Roma, Katrin and Lisa who fall victim to those police raids. Later they found refuge in Istanbul, but still live under fear as LGBT individuals are one of the most vulnerable groups in Turkey.

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22 SUN

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03

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

AUG

CANELA (Canela, Se Vive Dos Veces) Dir: Cecilia del Valle 77 min | 2020 | Argentina | Spanish | Documentary Feature | In Competition Áyax Grandi, an architect from the city of Rosario, at 48 decided to become Canela.

This film narrates the parenthesis in the life of Canela where she is torn between having gender reassignment operating surgery or not. With that concern, a search begins.

She consults with healthcare professionals, her sons and old friends until she realizes something about her desire that she didn't really expect.

Post screening Q&A can be viewed online at KASHISH YouTube Channel, and on KASHISH Facebook page.

Festivals & Honors: • World Premiere + Special Mention: Asterisco, Int’l LGBTIQ+ Film Festival, Argentina 2020 • ZineGoak, Bilbao International LGBT Film & Performing Arts Festival, Spain 2021 • Playa del Carmen Queer International Film Festival, Mexico 2021 • Out & Loud - Pune International Queer Film Festival, India 2021 • Internationales Frauen Film Fest Dortmund/Koln, Germany 2021 • Vanda Duarte Festival de Cine de Mujeres y Disidencias Latinxsny, USA 2021 • OutFest Perú, LGBT Film Festival Lima 2021 • Best Film, Best Director, Audience Award - Rio Festival de Cinema LGBTQIA+, Brazil 2021 • AMOR, LGBT+ International Film Festival Santiago de Chile 2021 • FilmPride, Brighton & Hove Pride's Queer Film Festival, Brighton, UK 2021 • Vancouver Latin American Film Festival, Canada 2021

Cecilia del Valle

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Director, Writer and Producer CECILIA DEL VALLE studied filmmaking at Universidad del Cine in Buenos Aires. Till now she has directed and produced Dilemas de un abandon (short film) Cinco (collective feature film) and Canela (feature documentary). She also conducts workshops about the Introduction to the cinematographic script “From Literature to Cinema” within the framework of the National University of Rosario Literature degree.

SHORT FILMS PACKAGE CHANCE ENCOUNTERS

AUG

22 SUN

Total Duration: 93 min

PROGRAM

04

Call it coincidence, destiny, fate, kismet — in one moment, lives can collide and change forever. Yet chance encounters aren't necessarily accidental; in fact, you can make your own luck by opening yourself to the world. This package of five short films is about all those crazy, casual, unexpected, or brief encounters!!

BEER! BEER!

Dir: Popo Fan 17 min | 2019 | Germany | English Tao, a Chinese guy, meets Sebastian, a local German; they begin exchanging a few common pick-up lines. Soon they move on to some ridiculous and emotional moments with each other, a mattress on the street suddenly changes everything.

TONE OF THE CITY (Tônica da cidade) Dir: Viviane Rodrigues 18 min | 2019 | Brazil | Portuguese Two women, a hot night in Brazil and dangerous shots of gin, memories and hurts! Tone of the City is a movie about emotional dysrhythmia in the usual space of big cities.

Note: This film is available only for audiences in India.

UNDERCURRENT Dir: Weng Yu-Tong 20 min | 2019 | Taiwan | Chinese In a winter evening of 1979, the arrest of antigovernment protesters involved in the Formosa Incident is underway. The city is under curfew, but a teenage student, out of curiosity, follows a mysterious young man from a riverside path into an abandoned hut.

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ESCAPING THE FRAGILE PLANET

(Απόδραση από τον εύθραυστο πλανήτη) Dir: Thanasis Tsimpinis 18 min | 2020 | Greece | Modern Greek A boy-meets-boy tale, a few hours before the world ends.

DISCLAIMER This is a work of fiction, as shot on July 2019.

Any resemblance to actual events surrounding the COVID‑19 pandemic is purely coincidental.

AND WE COLLIDE (潮汐平行时) Dir: Dongni Lanca Li 19 min | 2021 | China | Chinese A story about two men, two worlds and one real rocket! Inspired by the local rocket launch site, And We Collide depicts an unexpected tropical encounter.

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DOCUMENTARY CENTERPIECE

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22 SUN

PROGRAM

05

CURED

Dirs: Patrick Sammon, Bennett Singer 80 min | 2020 | USA | English | Documentary Feature

Illuminating a pivotal yet largely unknown chapter in the struggle for LGBTQ equality: the campaign that led the American Psychiatric Association (APA) to remove homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses in 1973. The film chronicles the strategy and tactics that led to a crucial victory in the movement for LGBTQ equality rights. Indeed, following the Stonewall uprising of 1969, the campaign that culminated in the APA’s decision marks the first major step on the path to first-class citizenship for LGBTQ Americans.

While Cured is indisputably about science, medicine, and politics, at its core this is a film about activism and the process of social change. It features a diverse group of crusaders with stubborn dedication, and big personalities who came together at a crossroads in the LGBTQ history.

Note: This film is available only for audiences in India.

Post screening Q&A can be viewed online at KASHISH YouTube Channel, and on KASHISH Facebook page.

Festivals & Honors: • World Premiere: Outfest Los Angeles LGBTQ+ Film Festival 2020 • At&T Audience Award: Best Documentary - Frameline44, 2020 • Audience Award Documentary Feature - Newfest, The New York LGBTQ+ Film Festival 2020 • Audience Award - ImageOut: The Rochester LGBT Film & Video Festival 2020 • Jury Award Best Documentary Feature - Out at the Movies, WinstonSalem, North Carolina • Winner Second Prize in the annual Library of Congress Lavine/Ken Burns Prize PATRICK SAMMON is the co-producer and director of Cured. A resident of Washington, DC, he previously served as creator and executive producer of Codebreaker, an awardwinning drama-documentary about the life and legacy of gay British codebreaker Alan Turing, that reached more than three million viewers worldwide.

Patrick Sammon & Bennett Singer

BENNETT SINGER is a Los Angeles-based filmmaker and the other co-director and coproducer of Cured. Bennett’s previous credits include co-directing Electoral Dysfunction, an award-winning film on voting rights, and Brother Outsider, a documentary portrait of the gay civil rights activist Bayard Rustin that premiered at Sundance and won more than 20 international prizes.

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22 SUN

PROGRAM

06

NARRATIVE FEATURE

AUG

ANOTHER SELF Dir: Amir Tavakkoli 95 min | 2020 | Iran, Islamic Republic of | Persian | Narrative Feature Born in an Iranian traditional family, Kaveh is transiting as Kimiya (Mina Vahid) preparing to fully embrace her feminine self. Her doting brother Kian (played by the dashing Amin Zendegani) stands by her decision and is even prepared to help her financially for the surgery. Kimiya hits a roadblock, since as per the rule of the land, approval from the father is necessary for gender reassignment surgery. And Kimiya’s father, who is already disgusted at the sight of his son roaming in woman’s attire, will never give consent for the surgery. Kimiya has to brave it out to put an end to her sufferings.

Post screening Q&A can be viewed online at KASHISH YouTube Channel, and on KASHISH Facebook page.

Amir Tavakkoli

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AMIR TAVAKKOLI is an Iranian writer and director. He holds a bachelor's degree in sociology from the University of Tehran. He started his career working as an assistant director for movies and TV-series. He makes his directorial debut with the feature film Another Self that takes a closer look at the life and sufferings of the transgender society in Iran. The film is having its World Premiere at KASHISH 2021.

Preceded By

RETURN TO SENDER Dir: Htet Aung Lwyn 23 min | 2020 | Myanmar | Burmese | Narrative Short A young mail-boy accidentally reads a letter that has been returned to its sender multiple times, and embarks on a journey to make sure that the letter is read, as it is meant to.

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22 SUN

PROGRAM

07

NARRATIVE FEATURE

AUG

RED YELLOW PINK Dir: Jolanta Warpechowski 89 min | 2020 | Austria, Poland | German, Polish | Narrative Feature “Red Yellow Pink” tells the story of a son (David Paul) and his mother (Agnieszka Salamon). He: homosexual. She: strictly Roman Catholic. Two different worlds – a conflict is starting. Can love overcome all prejudices? A film against discrimination. A movie for acceptance.

Post screening Q&A can be viewed online at KASHISH YouTube Channel, and on KASHISH Facebook page.

Festivals & Honors: • Winner Award of Merit (LGBT) - IndieFEST Film Awards, USA 2020 • Winner Jury Award (Best Drama, Best Actor) - Culture & Diversity Film Festival, USA 2020 • Strong Chance Film Festival, NY, USA 2020 • Imagine This Women's International Film Festival, Brooklyn NY, USA 2020 • Winner Foreign Film - East Europe International Film Festival, Warsaw 2020 • For Rainbow - Festival of Film and Culture of Sexual & Gender Diversity, Fortaleza, Brazil 2020

Jolanta Warpechowski

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JOLANTA WARPECHOWSKI is a Polish director and actress, known for Red Yellow Pink (2020), Uebergeil (2016) and Frosch, Schenkel und Prinzen (2017).

She has studied theatre science in Vienna, Austria, and Film Direction in Crakow, Poland. Gaining experience by working in different departments of film and theatre productions, she worked as theatre director. Her work is derived from improvisational theater. The main themes of her films are sex, prostitution, migration, LGBTQQ, violence, alcoholism, family, religion and social grotesque.

Preceded By

OUTSIDE THE AQUARIUM

(Außerhalb des Aquariums)

Dir: Alex Mello 25 min | 2021 | Germany | German | Narrative Short Amidst the prejudices and fears, Jonas a black queer immigrant tries to paint his experiences for his next painting exhibition but his fantasies for his future get the better of him.

Note: This film is available only for audiences in India.

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AUG

SHORT FILMS PACKAGE

26 RELIGIOUSLY QUEER THU

PROGRAM

01

Total Duration: 84 min

Though all formal religions preach humanity - that all are equal in eyes of God and thus we are all worthy of the same dignity and respect, only few religions and their sub sects acknowledge the LGBTQIA+ people and practice a lenient outlook towards them.

Through a mix package of four documentary and narrative films, we try to comprehend how religion and religious upbringing affect the growing up years and sexual identity formation of LGBTQIA+ individuals.

THE GAYTRIARCHY AND WHY WE NEED PRIDE Dir: TJ Narula 10 min | 2020 | Australia | English | Documentary Short Through the eyes of Australia's three leading LGTBQI+ activists, this documentary comments on the dogma and bigotry that take place in the name of religion as well as culture across oppressive countries, and how it impacts the LGBTQI+ community. It aims to question the validity of purist versions of all religions and their application across the sexuality, and the gender spectrum across conservative cultures.

TWO COLOURS OF JAHAN Dirs: Ritesh Matlani & Panta Mosleh 21 min | 2020 | Canada | English | Narrative Short Jahan, a gay South Asian artist uses hook up culture to explore homosexual themes in his religion for an exhibit. In between two hookups he gets on a call with his traditional mother that reveals the universal duality of South Asian queer lives.

75

TALES OF ANOTHER RADHA

Dir: Sudipto Kundu 25 min | 2021 | India | Bengali | Documentary Short

The concept of modern day gender fluidity among LGBTQ+ persons is not new, as it has existed in the ancient history & mythological philosophy of India. To rediscover this, the documentary travels to the interiors of Bengal documenting such practices and rituals existing in the secluded and reclusive indigenous communities of Baul singers. In tune with their mellifluous music, the documentary touches upon several examples of womanhood practices called Radha Vaab / Nari Vaab/ Gopi Vaab that offer clear indications of the concept of gender fluidity handed down over generations from ancient India.

This film is being made under the KASHISH QDrishti Film Grant 2019.

WE'RE ALL GOD'S CREATION (Sab Rab De Bande, ਸਬ ਰਬ ਦੇ ਬੰ ਦ)ੇ

Dir: TJ Narula 10 min | 2020 | Australia | English | Documentary Short Sab Rab De Bande brings forth the various challenges that LGBTQ Sikhs grapple with and the different ways in which they reconcile their faith and gender/sexual identities. Tracing the lives of five LGBTQ Sikhs and capturing their varied experiences as queer Sikhs, the documentary seeks to find answers for many pertinent questions about the correlation between them, and their religion.

76

26 THU

PROGRAM

02

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

AUG

TRANSITION AND HAPPINESS (Tránsito Y Felicidad) Dir: Jonas Benarroch 78 min | 2020 | Spain | Catalan, Spanish | Documentary Feature Rosa María is a transsexual woman and a father who completed her sexual reassignment surgery at the age of 59. Until then her behavior had been that of a typical macho. This documentary shows her ‘transition’ or gradual empowerment as a woman, a process that holds a certain promise of fulfillment. Alongside her friend, Fina, also a transsexual woman over 60 years old, they walk this path of light and shadow in their struggle to conquer the desired status of being a woman, as well as a degree of recognition on the part of society.

Post screening Q&A can be viewed online at KASHISH YouTube Channel, and on KASHISH Facebook page.

Festivals & Honors: • World Premiere: 5th Ramsgate International Film & TV Festival, UK 2021

JONAS BENARROCH (Tangeirs, Morocco, 1962) studied Fine Arts and filmmaking in Barcelona. He has a long career as director and screenwriter. He has made short films, video art, television shows, and commercials. Transition and Happiness which is having its International Premiere at KASHISH 2021, is his first documentary feature film as a director.

Jonas Benarroch

77

SHORT FILMS PACKAGE ACCEPTING WITH PRIDE

AUG

26 THU

Total Duration: 98 min

PROGRAM

“Picking and Choosing is not Acceptance”- says one of the characters in one of the films here. Acceptance has to be complete and an unconditional journey – like climbing up a ladder where you can’t miss a single bar. Acceptance by the law is helpful, but the real change can happen only when parents, families and friends start accepting and supporting their LGBTQIA+ children, family members or friends.

A selection of seven heart-warming films to bring a smile on your faces and make your hearts swell up with PRIDE!

03

FIRST CARNIVAL

(Primeiro Carnaval)

Dir: Alan Medina 5 min | 2020 | Brazil | No Dialogues The mundane lull of a neighbourhood is broken and a child is over the moon!

PINK BARONG Dir: Veronica Velasco 5 min | 2019 | Philippines | Tagalog, English Eric discovers-- and accepts-- his father's secret identity after his death.

MANO SANTA Dir: Stephanie Camacho Casillas 14 min | 2020 | Puerto Rico | Spanish Don Isidoro, better known as the “holy hand” by his people, shelters his grandson Pablo for a few days after he escaped from his home.

78

SPARKS

Dir: Netta Shalev 25 min | 2019 | Israel | Hebrew Set in 1994, homophobic Amit returns home a year after the death of his twin brother, Yoni, who died of AIDS. Amit is surprised to find that his family and Yoni’s former partner are going to a drag show in Yoni's memory.

ALEXA, XANDER AND THE UNIVERSE

(Sina Alexa, Xander at Ang Universe) Dir: Vahn Leinard C. Pascual 10 min | 2020 Philippines | Tagalog It is Miss Universe 2020 finals. In their room, siblings Alexa and Xander are busy readying up for their own… when something unexpected happened.

THE NAME OF THE SON (El nombre del hijo)

Dir: Martina Matzkin 13 min | 2020 | Argentina | Spanish Lucho, a 13-year-old trans boy, doesn't usually share much time with his father. An unwilling trip with him and his younger sister imposes new closeness that tests their relationship.

Note: This short film package is available only for audiences in India.

HAND OFF Dir: Chadlee Skrikker 24 min | 2020 | South Africa | Afrikaans, English A rugby player admits to having a crush on his best friend and teammate, causing a rift in their friendship. He retreats into a fantasy world as he struggles to confront his friend, while trying to fit into the macho world of rugby.

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DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

AUG

26 THU

PROGRAM

04

PRINCE OF DREAMS (Drömprins) Dir: Jessica Nettelbladt

90 min | 2021 | Sweden, France, Poland, Spain | Swedish, Polish, English | Documentary Feature | In Competition Erik was born as a girl but always felt like a boy. As an 18-year-old, he began the process of gender reassignment. Isolation, bullying and anxiety have followed Erik throughout his life, while he has struggled for acceptance from his surroundings and himself. Now as a 27 years old young man, encouraged by his beloved girlfriend Martyna he decides to go on a pilgrimage to the end of the world, the Camino de Finisterrae, to confront the demons of the past and finally be at peace with himself.

Shot over the course of 10 years, this trustful portrait tackles a difficult topic with seriousness, but also with warmth, humour and love. It’s a film about identity, mental health and healing, that goes beyond Erik’s own story.

Post screening Q&A can be viewed online at KASHISH YouTube Channel, and on KASHISH Facebook page.

Festivals & Honors: • World Premiere (Online): CPHDOX Copenhagen, Denmark 2021 • Krakow Film Festival, Poland 2021 • Russian Premiere: Moscow International Documentary Film Festival DOker 2021 • Madrid International Film Festival, Spain 2021

Jessica Nettelbladt

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JESSICA NETTELBLADT is a Swedish director and documentary filmmaker based in Scandinavia. Known for her in-depth personal interviews technique she has made several notable documentaries. Her previous documentary features, I Am My Own Dolly Parton (2011) and MonaLisa Story (2015) both won awards and critical acclaim at festivals. She has also authored books - How to Live and Survive as a Documentary Filmmaker (2011), and Voices Within the Walls (2018) which is set inside female prisons in Sweden.

Supported by:

Preceded By

IN A STRANGE ROOM

(En Una Habitación Extraña) Dir: Emilio J. López 38 min | 2020 | Spain, Germany, Italy | English | Documentary Short In the summer of 2008, Enzo travels to Berlin to work on a creative documentary and find a former lover.

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SHORT FILMS PACKAGE QUEERMENT QUÉBEC

AUG

26 THU

Total Duration: 98 min

PROGRAM

Continuing its collaboration with Canada's first and oldest LGBTQ+ film festival, Image+Nation Film Festival in Montreal, KASHISH is proud to celebrate Montreal image-makers. This package of six short films features an eclectic and entertaining mix of emerging and established talents. Proving Montreal is a hotbed of queer creativity, these filmmakers offer up dazzling stories that speak of and to uniquely Québécois cultural perspectives.

05

Note: This short film package is available only for audiences in India.

NOTHING TO SEE HERE

(Rien de beau ici)

Dir: Gabrielle Vigneault-Gendron 17 min | 2019 | Canada | French | Narrative Short Someone has been killing cats in Emmanuelle’s neighborhood while her own pet has been missing for two months. Mixing dark humour and suspense to create a contemporary urban tale, Rien De Beau Ici is a look at social tensions.

MEMENTO MORI Dir: Derek Elliott Bagley 12 min | 2020 | Canada | French | Narrative Short An elderly woman lies on her deathbed, ignored by her various family members as they wait around the house for her to die. After her death, the family is forced to reckon with the aftermath of her seemingly inconvenient demise and the impact of her questionable personal legacy.

THE PHD (Le doctorat) Dir: Maxime S. Girard 20 min | 2020 | Canada | French | Narrative Short A romantic dinner turns into a ludicrous disaster when Bruno, an anxious psychology student, has to lie to his control-freak boyfriend about what really happened during his PhD’s entrance interview earlier that day.

82

I’LL END UP IN PRISON (Je finirai en prison) Dir: Alexandre Dostie 20 min | 2019 | Canada | French | Narrative Short A stay-at-home mom gets into a murderous car crash where nobody wants to take the blame.

WHAT WE DON'T TELL (Ce qu'on ne raconte pas) Dir: Zachary Ayotte 15 min | 2019 | Canada | French | Narrative Short Told through flashbacks, What We Don't Tell takes a sobering yet nuanced look at survivors of sexual abuse and asks a difficult question: is it possible to truly recover from being abused?

QUEER NATION Dir: Frigid 8 min | 2020 | Canada | No Dialogue | Music Video Vintage Queer Montreal: A glimpse into the 90s. Working though the 90s, House of Pride brought Montreal LGBTQ+ people together in the celebration of diversity.

Program Courtesy:

Supported by:

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NARRATIVE FEATURE

AUG

26 THU

PROGRAM

06

NOWHERE (La Cuarta) Dirs: David Salazar, Francisco Salazar

87 min | 2018 | Colombia, USA | English, Spanish | Narrative Feature Adrian (Miguel Gonzalez) and Sebastian (Juanpablo Castiblanco), a Colombian couple living together in New York City, are on the fast track to professional and romantic success. But when Sebastian is faced with immigration complications, his status in the U.S. may rely on help from Adrian’s family back in Colombia - who do not know Adrian is gay. Fearing rejection from his family, but at risk of losing Sebastian forever, Adrian must choose which path to take.

Post screening Q&A can be viewed online at KASHISH YouTube Channel, and on KASHISH Facebook page.

Festivals & Honors: • World Premiere: Woods Hold Film Festival Cape Cod, Massachusetts, USA 2020 • Jury Award (Runner Up), Audience Award (2nd Runner Up) - Woods Hold Film Festival 2020 • Colombian Premiere: Festival de cine de Jardin Medellin, Colombia 2020 • Winner Best First Feature - Festival Villa del CineVilla de Leyva, Colombia 2020 • Outshine Film Festival Miami, Florida, USA 2020

David Salazar & Francisco Salazar

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DAVID & FRANCISCO SALAZAR (Writers/Directors/Producers) are awardwinning filmmakers and media creators who under their company La Cuarta Productions have directed a number of short films that have been showcased at regional film festivals all over the United States. They have also directed a number of commercial videos for some well known brands and organizations.

Nowhere which is having its Asian Premiere at KASHISH 2021, is their debut feature based on their Latinx List selected screenplay Adrian y Sebastian. In addition to their film work, the Salazar Brothers are the creators of OperaWire. com

AUG

SHORT FILMS PACKAGE

26 FEARS & FANTASIES THU

PROGRAM

07

Total Duration: 99 min

A collection of five bold shorts about those unreal, uncanny situations where one’s body and soul both get challenged; and eventually result into a lifetime memory that can be rejuvenating, remorseful or both!

THE SUIT WEARETH THE MAN Dir: Mitchell Marion 29 min | 2019 | UK | English, Polish Maciek, a young London businessman struggles to reconcile his corporate ambition and latent sexual desires, with his traditional Polish upbringing. So much so, that after gaining a promotion at work, he becomes paranoid that a group of beautiful Suited Men are following him, and the lines between shame fuelled lust, and reality, begin to blur...

LIMITS (Límites) Dir: José Antonio Valera 10 min | 2020 | Spain | Spanish After a random hook-up Adri dares Jon for a game. What follows is unpredictable!

Note: This film is available only for audiences in India.

OFFLINE (Desconexo) Dir: Lui Avallos 30 min | Brazil | Portuguese After a presidential decree that shuts off the Internet connection nationwide, two neighbours who have never spoken in real life, but have a worship relationship online - one selling self pornography and the other consuming - meet and leave the big city for a day to live offline.

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POLTER

Dir: Álvaro Vicario 10 min | 2019 | Spain | Spanish José faces a paranormal event that breaks into his home. As he fights for his life against the supernatural powers, Jose will have to discover the secret behind the phenomena, if he wishes to regain control of his home.

Note: This film is available only for audiences in India.

UNLIVEABLE (Inabitável) Dirs: Matheus Farias, Enock Carvalho 20 min | 2020 | Brazil | Portuguese In Brazil, where a trans person is murdered every three days, Marilene searches for her daughter Roberta, a trans woman who went missing. While running out of time, she discovers a hope for the future.

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AUG

SHORT FILMS PACKAGE

27 INTERNATIONAL NARRATIVE SHORTS COMPETITION – II FRI

PROGRAM

01

Total Duration: 91 min

The second part of this year’s nominations for the Best International Narrative Short Film award highlights four soul-searching stories that put human connect and bonding front and center.

Post screening Q&A can be viewed online at KASHISH YouTube Channel, and on KASHISH Facebook page.

LILA Dir: Lamberto Guerra 20 min | 2020 | Spain | Spanish One night. Three women. Three generations. A grandmother, a mother and a daughter are about to lose Lila, the pet that has joined them for the past 20 years. This will expose their unresolved conflicts: their fears, their mistakes, their secrets... And how much they need each other.

A BRONX STORY Dirs: Bell Soto, Gabriel Peña 20 min | 2020 | Peru, USA | Spanish Two queer Dominican men living in Bronx, New York, navigate modern-day relationship's trials and tribulations while trying to keep their love afloat.

THE LAST ROMANTICS OF THE WORLD

(Os Últimos Românticos do Mundo) Dir: Henrique Arruda 23 min | 2020 | Brazil | Portuguese

2050. The world as we know it is about to be ended by a pink cloud. Far away from the urban chaos, Pedro and Miguel seek only eternity.

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ONLY HUMAN (Bytost)

Dir: Lukas Vizner 28 min | 2020 | Slovakia | Slovak The relationship of a talented pianist Christoph and an experienced porn-star Philip opens a complex topic of prejudice in society, as well as within LGBTI community.

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AUG

SHORT FILMS PACKAGE

27 MY LIFE, MY CHOICES FRI

PROGRAM

02

Total Duration: 77 min

The second part of this year’s nominations for the Best International Narrative Life is all about facing challenges, making mistakes and learning new lessons.

A package of six short documentaries giving glimpses of the journeys of some amazing, determined queer people from across the continents. They must have stumbled, fallen or failed - but they keep themselves going because they choose to make rest of their lives the best of their life.

I AM (Yo Soy) Dir: Jaime Fidalgo 10 min | 2019 | Spain | Spanish A solitary night watchman opens the doors of his work to take us on a cathartic inner journey, in which he strips off the mask he’s created before the world, to finally question who he is.

GETTING MARRIED (Casarnos) Dirs: Bruno Montenegro 5 min | 2020 | Peru | Spanish Bruno is a transgender boy who doesn't believe in marriage, but a few months ago he learned that his friends from Iquitos Almendra and Luko were married in Argentina and returned to Peru.

So he decided to go to Iquitos to dispel his doubts.

AGAINST THE WIND Dir: Ruhul Robin Khan 7 min | 2021 | Bangladesh | Bengali After the age of 25, Noor Alam discovers himself as an Intersex person. Being born as a girl and later declared as a boy, Noor gradually got alienated from family, society, institution and even from himself. Noor keeps struggling all through this challenging journey, until defining their true identity.

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FABULOUS FARMER

(Pasyonistang Magsasaka) Dir: Alfredo Del Rosario Ruzol 5 min | 2019 | Philippines | Tagalog As a gay/bisexual farmer and his live-in partner expect their first child, he seemed to have taken both his roles and responsibility sincerely – as the provider to his soon to be a big family, and as an aware farmer.

LETTER TO MY MOTHER (‫نامه ای به‬ ‫)مادرم‬ Dir: Amina Maher

20 min | 2019 | Islamic Republic of Iran, Germany, Malaysia | Persian A heartfelt letter to tell the mother the most painful of secrets. Amina, who in 2002 was the small protagonist of Ten by Abbas Kiarostami, is now a transgender filmmaker who tries to make her voice heard, understood, and be understood.

FREEDOM

(Libertà)

Dir: Savino Carbone 30 min | 2019 | Italy | Italian, French, English Two homosexual migrants reflect on their status as asylum seekers in Italy, after having left Senegal and Nigeria to escape persecution against the LGBT community. Filmed in Bari in 2019, at the height of the Salvian campaign against migrants, they are confronted with a climate of xenophobia, forcing them on a lonely journey of self-determination, between memories of lost loves, dangers and suffering.

90

27 FRI

PROGRAM

03

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

AUG

ALWAYS AMBER Dirs: Lia Hietala, Hannah Reinikainen 74 min | 2020 | Sweden | Swedish | Documentary Feature Seventeen-year-old Amber and best friend Sebastian refuse to let society label their gender. Moving through a spectrum of fluid identities, they dream together, party together, and form friendships with likeminded people. The queer teenagers inhabit an open and loving world far away from the judging eyes of others, in which everything seems possible. But when Amber falls in love with Charlie, their utopian world is shaken to its core. Trust issues begin to emerge, and in the midst of it all, Amber has to face going through their transition alone.

Note: This film is available only for audiences in India.

Festivals & Honors: • Berlinale Panorama 2020 • Nordisk Panorama 2020 • Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival 2020 • Bergen International Film Festival 2020

Lia Hietala & Hannah Reinikainen

LIA HIETALA directed her first short film in 2016, If I Say No (2016) which earned her the Nordnorsk Film Center’s scholarship, which resulted in her second short film My Gay Sister (2017). The film became very successful and won the Teddy Award for best short film, at the Berlin International Film Festival.

Hietala continues to work with both fiction and documentary and is currently studying for a bachelor in fine arts at The University of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm. Always Amber is her first feature film.

HANNAH REINIKAINEN has been studying journalism at the University of Stockholm and documentary filmmaking at Biskops-Arnö. She has previously directed two short films Nybohovsbacken (2016) and She Only Beat The One She Loves (2017). Always Amber is her first feature film.

Supported by:

91

SHORT FILMS PACKAGE GIRLS SHORTS

AUG

27 FRI

Total Duration: 101 min

PROGRAM

Here is a collection of seven moving, moody and cheerful short films about samesex loving women… and their hookups, romances, breakups and bonding. One sunshine fact – majority of these films are by female filmmakers.

DEARLY (Tenderment) Dir: Rose-Anne Déry 15 min | 2020 | Canada | French Olivia can sense her relationship slipping away.

As she still has a strong desire and a lot of tenderness for Julie, she chooses to keep her feelings quiet during the romantic weekend that Julie organizes for her birthday.

LEO & ALEX IN THE MIDDLE OF THE 21ST CENTURY (Leo y Alex en pleno siglo 21) Dirs: Eva Libertad, Nuria Muñoz 7 min | 2020 | Spain | Spanish Alex wakes up in his bed after a night of partying. Next to her is Leo, her roommate, who doesn't remember how she ended up there.

As of this morning, nothing will be the same between the two.

SUCH FAREWELLS Dir: Takaaki Watanabe 14 min | 2019 | Japan | Japanese Luka and her girlfriend Nagi were parting ways when Luka’s brother visits with sad news. For Luka, there was more than one goodbye that day.

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SAVE TWILIGHT (Salvo el crepúsculo) Dir: Mario Hernández López 20 min | 2019 | Spain | Spanish Longing for her dead girlfriend, Julia plunges into a spiral of pain, guilt and self-destruction.

Until one of those nights full of memories, Julia rebels against the fate that has separated them, and decides to meet her, no matter what.

VIRTUAL GUARD (La Guardia Virtual) Dir: Daniela Aguinsky 115 min | 2019 | Argentina | Spanish Girl meets girl... through a security camera. Can Miriam leave the totem and realize her fantasy?

Or will she let the devious Karen stay with Brenda's love?

GIRLS SHOULDN'T WALK ALONE AT NIGHT (Les filles ne marchent pas seules la nuit) Dir: Katerine Martineau 18 min | 2020 | Canada | French After a late night high school graduation party, Chantal and Delphine find themselves walking home alone in the dark. Lost in the forest, their long night walk is punctuated by carelessness, and an irrepressible desire to exist.

THE WASH (IN LOVE) (Colada) Dir: Ibon Hernando 10 min | 2020 | Spain | Spanish María is in love with her neighbor Susana. She wants to make her fall in love, but she only meets her on the landing, where they tend the laundry.

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DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

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27 FRI

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05

REBEL DYKES

Dirs: Harri Shanahan, Siân Williams 82 min | 2021 | UK | English | Documentary Feature | In Competition

This rabble-rousing documentary follows a tight-knit gang of lesbians who met at Greenham Common peace camp in the riotous London of the 1980s, and went on to become artists, performers, musicians and activists. A heady mash-up of animation, archive footage and interviews, the film tells the story of a radical scene: squatters, BDSM nightclubs, anti-Thatcher rallies, protests demanding action around AIDS and the fierce ties of chosen family. This is an extraordinarily privileged glimpse into a bygone world by those who not only lived out their politics with heartfelt conviction, but lived to tell the tale.

Note: This film is available only for audiences in India.

Post screening Q&A can be viewed online at KASHISH YouTube Channel, and on KASHISH Facebook page.

Festivals & Honors: • World Premiere: BFI Flare, UK 2021 • Australia Premiere: Melbourne Queer Film Festival, Australia 2021 • Frameline LGBTQ Film Festival, San

Francisco, USA 2021 • Fringe Film Festival, UK 2021 • NewFest, New York LGBTQ+ Film Festival 2021 • Damn These Heels Film Festival 2021

Harri Shanahan

HARRI SHANAHAN is non-binary, queer artist who recently completed an MA in Animation at the University of Salford. Harri produces and directs music videos and short artist films, and was animator for Kate Jessop's award- winning film Queer Heroes (2017). Harri is member of alternative Feminist band ILL, debut album released last year, have recently played Royal Albert Hall and several national music festivals and art galleries. Rebel Dykes marks their directorial debut.

Siân Williams

SIÂN WILLIAMS is a creative filmmaker and musician with BA(Hons) Photographic Art, MA Critical Theory, PGDip in Digital Heritage. They trained film preservation at North West Film Archive. Siân works as Digitisation Manager for Manchester UK HUB British Library's 'Unlocking Our Sound Heritage' project, after 5 years at BFI as Digitisation Project Coordinator (film restoration). Rebel Dykes marks their directorial debut.

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27 FRI

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06

NARRATIVE FEATURE

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ADVENT OF MARY (Advento de Maria) Dir: Vinícius Machado 103 min | 2020 | Brazil | Portuguese | Narrative Feature | In Competition Maria, an 11-year-old transgender girl (skillfully played by transgender child actor Maria Eduarda Maia), tormented by the search for her identity, faces religious and family pressure until she meets Lena, her new neighbour. A pure friendship, free from judgments and prejudices, moves Maria to discover and understand her condition.

Post screening Q&A can be viewed online at KASHISH YouTube Channel, and on KASHISH Facebook page.

Festivals & Honors: • National Premiere: 14th For Rainbow Festival, Fortaleza Brazil 2020 • Winner: Best Actress and Best Art Director - 14th For Rainbow Festival, Fortaleza Brazil 2020

Vinícius Machado

VINÍCIUS MACHADO has a degree in Philosophy and has been working with cinema since 2012. He wrote, produced and directed the short film Errantes (2012); the feature Errantes: The Abandonment of Orphans (2013); the short film Diana (2014). His previous feature Menina de Barro (2017) was awarded the Best Feature in the Popular Jury and Best Actress at the 50th Brasília Festival of Brazilian Cinema, Best Screenplay and Best Supporting Actress at the 8th Civifilmes. The script for his latest film Advent of Mary was selected to the New Histories Laboratory of SESC / SENAC of 2017.

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NARRATIVE FEATURE

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27 FRI

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07

FORGOTTEN ROADS (La nave del olvido) Dir: Nicol Ruiz Benavides

72 min | 2020 | Chile | Spanish | Narrative Feature | In Competition Claudina (Rosa Ramírez), a 70-year-old docile woman, after her husband’s death has to move from her countryside turkey farm into the town to live with her daughter, despite their strained relationship. Claudina’s dull life there unexpectedly sparks up when she meets Elsa (Romana Satt), the dynamic and independent married woman next door.

Elsa seems to have made choices Claudina never had the chance to make. She opens Claudina’s eyes to the possibility of expanding love’s horizon but in the gossipy Chilean town of Lautaro, their budding relationship doesn’t stay a secret for long. Claudina soon realizes that she has to make the tough choice to choose between her traditional role, and the road to happiness ahead of her.

Note: This film is available only for audiences in India.

Post screening Q&A can be viewed online at KASHISH YouTube Channel, and on KASHISH Facebook page.

Festivals & Honors: • World Premiere: Frameline 2020 • Mix Milano, Milano 2020 • New Fest, New York 2020 • Audience Award - Image + Nation, Montreal 2020 • Seattle Queer Film Festival Seattle 2020 • Winner: Best Film with Gender Perspective, Best Director - Huelva Latin American FF 2020 • Outfest Fusion Film Festival 2021 • Winner: Best Film & Grand Prize- Zinegoak Film Festival, Bilbao 2021 • Best Feature Film Special Mention - Roze Filmdagen Film Festival, Amsterdam 2021 • Movies That Matter, Netherland 2021

Nicol Ruiz

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NICOL RUIZ is a Chilean filmmaker who studied filmmaking at Universidad Mayor, Peru. In 2019 she directed seven of ten chapters of the fiction TV serial Los Carcamales as a freelancing director. Forgotten Roads is her first feature film that she started shooting in 2016, finally managed to complete the postproduction in 2020. Currently Nicol is developing her second feature film, called Cuando la Lluvia no me toca (When The Rain Does Not Touch Me).

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SHORT FILMS PACKAGE

28 SMOKE AND MIRRORS SAT

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01

Total Duration: 81 min

People often tend to project themselves differently in front of others. Disguising their traits and emotions they create an identity which is poles apart from their actual self. They do it with their peers, their opponents, and even with their friends, families and the loved ones. The intentions for doing so could be as varied as the individuals. It could be for seeking an appreciation, respect, love, or at times because of fear. Here is a package of five short films portraying a variety of ‘Smoke and Mirrors’ that people create - willingly or unknowingly!

HIERARCHY (Jerarquias) Dirs: Martín Olivares Del Campo, Ángel Torrego 15 min | 2021| Spain | Spanish Andrea suffers bullying for being lesbian in her school, as well as on her blog. Her classmates also turn their back on her. Her another classmate Marta also has feelings for girls but fearing being lonely like Andrea, is forced to hide her true self. May be her coming out could change Andrea’s sufferings.

PA'LANTE Dir: David Van 18 min | 2020 Czech Republic | Czech Šimon discovers that his ex-girlfriend has started dating a transsexual. Feeling deceived, as he waits for the subway, he thinks about a way to deal with it.

OTHER Dir: Soheil Nazari 15 min | 2020 | Islamic Republic of Iran | Persian | Narrative Short Intimacy of the night that Ali and Amir spent together at Ali's villa, turns into an illusion by the unexpected visit from Ali's wife there.

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FINDING MYSELF (Procuro-me)

Dirs: Jelles Ribeiro, Jessika Goulart 19 min | 2020 | Brazil | Narrative Short

On his girlfriend’s insistence Julio finds a place at Fred's house. The roommate relationship between the two, triggers an unstoppable new feeling for Julio. Will this destroy him or help him to discover his true self!

I DON'T KNOW Dir: Jérémy Barlozzo 14 min | 2020 | France | French | Narrative Short What seems to be the night of passion with a promising threesome, turns into a journey of self realization and discoveries!

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SHORT FILMS PACKAGE

28 STUDENT SHORTS COMPETITION – II SAT

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02

Total Duration: 82 min

The second part of Students Shorts Competition includes four intense and stylistic films from Film & Media colleges from Asia, Europe and Oceania about queer love and families.

Post screening Q&A with the Student Filmmakers can be viewed online at KASHISH YouTube Channel, and on KASHISH Facebook page .

ELAGABALUS Dir: Xanthe Dobbie 17 min | 2020 | Australia | English Burdened by a prophecy that dooms them to a violent death, Elagabalus, a genderqueer Roman Emperor, embraces excess. Much to the dismay of their controlling mother, Elagabalus is enamoured by a dashing charioteer. But as Elagabalus’ habits grow increasingly sadistic, mother and lover must band together to fulfill destiny.

College: Australian Film Television and Radio School

POLYGRAPH Dir: Samira Saraya 20 min | 2020 | Israel | Arabic, Hebrew Yasmine, an openly lesbian Arab nurse living in Tel Aviv, finds out that her lover Or, an intelligence officer in the Israeli army has been reporting on their relationship. Their liaison is further strained by the 2014 Israel-Gaza conflict and by Yasmine’s sister’s visit who arrives from the West Bank, not knowing that she is going to meet the occupying enemy at her own sister’s house.

College: The Steve Tisch School of Film and Television, Tel-Aviv University, Israel Note: This film is available only for audiences in India.

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BRIDESMAID

Dir: Tzu-Ting Shen 15 min | 2020 | Taiwan | Chinese Jean, who is neutral in appearance, is forced to go home and put on her bridesmaid dress for the coming of her sister’s wedding. But things go differently when Jean and her girlfriend meet her drunk father at the stir-fried food restaurant that night.

College: Department of Motion Picture of National Taiwan University of Arts

JULKA AND JULIE Dir: Gloria Stern 30 min | 2020 | Germany One night, Julka closes a door to follow a path leading to her morose self. At the age of 75 she seems to have come to the end of her life, but a letter coming from her first love changes everything.

College: Film University Babelsberg, Germany Note: This film is available only for audiences in India.

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03

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

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MARRY ME HOWEVER (‫)חתונה הפוכה‬ Dir: Mordechai Vardi 63 min | 2020 | Israel | Hebrew | Documentary Feature The film tells the stories of LGBT men and women who, for religious reasons, decided to marry against their own sexual orientation, to comply with Torah laws and be accepted into their families and religious communities. Some shared their secret with their partners, some kept it hidden, and some lied even to themselves. After their divorces, they confront the conflicts they repressed: their faith and religious laws; children, family and community; exposure to society and search for a partner. The characters experience a journey of self-acceptance and social activism, as they try to affect a change in their religious environments. The film also follows the women who married and divorced homosexual partners, as well as rabbis and psychologists who seek a solution to an unsolvable conflict.

Note: This film is available only for audiences in India.

Post screening Q&A can be viewed online at KASHISH YouTube Channel, and on KASHISH Facebook page.

Festivals & Honors: • National Premiere + Beyond the Screen Award Nomination - Docaviv, Israel, 2020 • World Premiere: Sofia DocuMental, Bulgaria, 2020 • TLV Fest, Israel, 2020 • Queer Voices- Moldox, Moldova, 2020 • Tampa Bay Jewish Film Festival, USA, 2021

Mordechai Vardi

Supported by:

RABBI MORDECHAI VARDI (62) is the rabbi of Kibbutz Rosh Tzurim and a director, scriptwriter, and instructor at Ma’aleh school of Television, Film, & the Arts in Jerusalem. He wrote the screenplay for the movie Halake which was screened at the Jerusalem Film Festival 2008 and broadcasted on Israel TV's Channel. Rabbi Vardi produced and directed the 2017 documentary on Roots’ work during the conflict flare-up of 2015 titled The Field.

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Preceded By

IFTAH Dir: Moti Rachamim 42 min | 2020 | Israel | Hebrew | Narrative Short After years of sexual denial, Iftah leaves his family to live alone in Tel-Aviv. Attracted to men, but torn between his former and new life, Iftah is consumed with blame and feels disconnected from everything around him.

The drama moves between different time periods, raising penetrating questions regarding prejudice and life on the fringes of society.

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SHORT FILMS PACKAGE

28 BOYS SHORTS SAT

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04

Total Duration: 107 min This selection of six short films about boys who will soon be men, and men who are still boys deep down in their hearts – their anxieties and vulnerabilities, their playful shenanigans and charismatic camaraderie; their smouldering desires and romances!

RIVER (Rio) Dir: Marco Buontempo 20 min | 2020 | Argentina | Spanish Bruno and Franco meet again many years after having shared an affair in their teens. During a day spent together, they exchange thoughts on their behavior in the past, and the changes of mind in their earlier attitude towards sexuality.

ON MY WAY Dir: Sonam Larcin 22 min | 2020 | Belgium | English, French YThe unexpected arrival of a Nigerian migrant in the Belgian countryside shakes up the fragile daily life of two men living a secret relationship.

PEE SITTING DOWN (Mear Sentado) Dir: David Montosa 12 min | 2020 | Spain | Spanish On what seems like an ordinary night, two friends face their worst enemy: the social construction of the gender. Only the bravest men survive. A fag joke on masculinity!

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JESSE JAMES

Dir: Josef Steiff 20 min | 2020 | USA | English Jesse has been in a violent relationship with Mike. Today they test the boundaries of their relationship and come face to face, not just with what they are losing, but with what they have already lost.

VERANICO Dir: João Brás 15 min | 2020 | Portugal | Portuguese It is a hot summer in August 2016. In this ephemeral sea of unforeseen events, passions, changes, voids, escapes and deceits, Rodrigo - between his personal discoveries and uncertainties about the future - is surprised by the outbreak of a set of fires in Madeira Island.

What will happen to him if the wind shifts?

IT'S JUST IN MY HEAD

(È solo nella mia testa)

Dir: Marius Gabriel Stancu 18 min | 2020 | Italy | Italian Childhood buddies Andreas and Alessandro are like chalk and cheese, though they have moved to different cities, the two still come down to spend their summers together at their native seaside resort. This summer, their annual sojourn is going to be different.

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28 SAT

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DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

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MOHINI - MEN IN SAREES Dir: Sharmila Rajaram Shinde 68 min | 2019 | India | Marathi, Hindi, English | Documentary Feature Mohini follows Marathi Television Actress Sharmila Rajaram Shinde as she tries to satiate her curiosity about the cross dresser folk dancers of Maharashtra. After a chance encounter with a male Lavni artist, Shinde takes us along on her journey of insights she gathers about the art, history and taboo surrounding the dance form.

From the formation of Bin Baykancha Tamasha an all-male Lavni troupe to the hurdles that the homophobic Indian society creates in the artistic expression of the male Lavni dancers, the film shows the glittery side of the painted faces, as well as the dark side after the curtain falls.

Post screening Q&A can be viewed online at KASHISH YouTube Channel, and on KASHISH Facebook page.

Festivals & Honors: • Maharashtra International Film Festival, Mumbai • Best Woman Filmmaker & Finalist - Bharat Int’l Film Festival, Mumbai • Indian Panorama International Film Festival, Mumbai

Sharmila Rajaram Shinde

SHARMILA RAJARAM SHINDE is a self-taught documentary filmmaker and TV actor from Pune, Maharashtra. A graduate in fine arts, she has also forayed in Hindi theatre with eminent writers and theatre directors like Gulzar and Salim Arif. Mohini is her first attempt at film making, and she has chosen documentary as the medium because of her fondness for the process of documentary film making.

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NARRATIVE FEATURE

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28 SAT

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06

A SKELETON IN THE CLOSET (Todos tenemos un muerto en el placard o un hijo en el closet) Dir: Nicolás Teté 100 min | 2020 | Argentina | Spanish | Narrative Feature An architecture student living in Buenos Aires, Manuel (Facundo Gambandé) returns to his hometown for his parent’s wedding anniversary, but he actually wants to ask money to move to Denmark to be with his boyfriend. The last time Manuel saw his family, he came out of the closet. Since then his relationship with his parents is tensed. Matters get worse when Manuel’s boyfriend dumps him. Trying to figure out his life, Manuel finds solace in a sexual encounter with his former high school teacher, but moving back to his small hometown isn’t an option for him as an out gay man. Feeling like the black sheep in his close-knit boisterous family, who all happily work together in their family-owned pasta factory, Manual’s trip home becomes an opportunity to reconnect with the family he thought he’d left behind.

Post screening Q&A can be viewed online at KASHISH YouTube Channel, and on KASHISH Facebook page.

Festivals & Honors: • Winner Guadalajara Construye (Work in progress) - Guadalajara Film Festival, Mexico 2020 • World Premiere: OUTshine LGBTQ+ Film Festival Miami & Fort Lauderdale, USA 2020 • Cinema Diverse: The Palm Springs LGBTQ Film Festival, USA 2020 • Reeling Chicago LGBTQ+ International Film Festival, USA 2020 • Tampa Bay Internacional Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, USA 2020 • Image Out Film Festival Rochester, NY, USA 2020 • Europe Premiere: LesGaiCineMad, Madrid, Spain 2020 Writer, Director and Producer NICOLÁS TETÉ, an alumnus of Universidad del Cine-FUC, is known for the fiction movies Last Family Holidays (2013), Onyx (2016) and the documentary Shineless (2018) that he did as a co-director. His films have screened at festivals like BAFICI, Mar del Plata, Punta del Este, San Diego Latino, San Pablo Latino.

Nicolás Teté

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28 SAT

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07

NARRATIVE FEATURE

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THE LAWYER (Advokatas) Dir: Romas Zabarauskas 97 min | 2020 | Lithuania | Lithuanian, English | Narrative Feature Corporate lawyer Marius (Eimutis Kvošciauskas) spends most of his time at dinner parties and chasing young lovers. After the death of his estranged father, Marius finds himself looking for answers and finds himself developing a surprising connection with sex-cam worker Ali (Dogaç Yildiz) - a bisexual Syrian refugee stuck in Belgrade. Relieved at finally having something to focus on, Marius throws himself into helping Ali seek asylum in a more LGBTQ+-friendly country in Europe. Marius travels to Belgrade, which deepens their connection, and tests their personal and physical borders. What starts as a distraction, blossoms into a tricky love affair leading Marius to question his privilege and his priorities.

Note: This film is available only for audiences in India.

Post screening Q&A can be viewed online at KASHISH YouTube Channel, and on KASHISH Facebook page.

Festivals & Honors: • World Premiere: BFI Flare, United Kingdom • Molodist Kyiv International Film Festival, Ukraine • Seoul International Pride Film Festival, Korea • Florence Queer Film Festival, Italy • Baltic Film Days, Lithuania

Romas Zabarauskas

• International Queer & Migrant Film Festival, Amsterdam • International Film Festival of India, India • Pune International Film Festival, India • Melbourne Queer Film Festival, Australia • Beijing Diversity Week, China • Chéries-Chéris, Paris LGBTQ Film Festival, France

ROMAS ZABARAUSKAS is a Lithuanian film director, screenwriter and producer.

Romas made his debut with a short film Porno Melodrama in 2011 which was shown in several international film festivals including Berlinale. He has also directed the films We Will Riot (2013) and You Can't Escape Lithuania (2016). A unique cinematic voice from the Baltics. Romas is equally known in his home country as an openly gay, outspoken LGBT+ equality rights advocate.

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SHORT FILMS PACKAGE DOCUMENTARY SHORTS COMPETITION 2 Total Duration: 100 min

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29 SUN

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Second part of the ‘In Competition’ under 60 minutes documentary films offers three up-close & personal stories of LGBTQIA+ people who dared to swim upstream and challenge the prevailing stereotypes – eventually creating the well deserved space for themselves, and also a better understanding about LGBTQIA+ community at large.

01

Post screening Q&A can be viewed online at KASHISH YouTube Channel, and on KASHISH Facebook page

OUT LOUD Dir: Gail Willumsen 53 min | 2020 | USA | English OUT LOUD chronicles the first season of the historic Trans Chorus of Los Angeles, the largest group of transgender and gender nonconforming people anywhere in the world, who regularly sing together. Led by Lindsey Deaton, who co-founded the chorus and served as its first artistic director, these choristers, many of whom have no musical training, come together to hone their craft and find their voices. Some choristers have the added challenge of coping with changes to their vocal range as they take hormones to transition. The stakes are high for all, as they prepare for their 2016 public concert debut, in this inspiring story of an extraordinary choir.

GRACE

Dir: Smarak Samarjeet 25 min | 2020 | India | Tamil This film explores the life of Grace Banu, a Dalit rights and Trans rights activist seeking a dignified life for her, and her community. Against all odds, she became the first transgender person to be admitted to an engineering college, and has adopted young Transgenders as her daughters.

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TRACING UTOPIA Dirs: Catarina de Sousa & Nick Tyson 27 min | 2021 | Portugal, USA | English A group of queer teens in New York City discuss their ideas of a queer utopia. They build online safe spaces within a popular video game, and create a manifesto for a more equal and just world where everyone can be their true self. With humour and kindness, they illustrate the power of a community of love.

Note: This film is available only for audiences in India.

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SHORT FILMS PACKAGE MATTERS OF HEART

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29 SUN

Total Duration: 130 min

PROGRAM

A package of six passionate stories about some typical and atypical, but certainly contemporary, romances from around the world and beyond, that will warm your soul and melt your heart!

02

THE TEARS' THING

(Le coup des larmes)

Dir: Clémence Poésy 25 min | 2019 | France | French Florence is an actress. Preparations for her new role will challenge her in a way she could never have seen coming.

JUST A GIRL

Dir: Lina Green 21 min | 2020 | USA | English A young transgender woman finds love in the most unlikely place. After finally coming into her own, Andrea is ready to let her past go and find love.

AND JUST TWO MORE (‫)فقط دو نفر بیشتر‬

Dir: Alireza Mohammadi 20 min | 2021 | Islamic Republic of Iran | Persian As the deadline for the population census approaches fast, a man struggles to get his lover’s details registered. A touching tale about the matters of heart!

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GUARDIAN (Guarda)

Dir: Pablo Arreba 5 min | 2020 | Spain | Spanish It's yet another messed up field day for Gabi and Rafa who are just back at the office to face their boss. May be more messed up for Gabi!

NOT THAT KIND OF GUY (Mauvais Genre)

Dir: Sarah Al Atassi 26 min | 2020 | France | French Léto, a young trans gay man living in the industrial suburb of Tours (France), is stuck between his boring day job at a local movie theater, a hostile neighborhood and random sex encounters through dating apps. One day at the parking lot of an ice skating ring he meets Hamza, a solitary employee with an enigmatic charm. Will this ‘meet cute’ finally warm his heart?

Note: This film is available only for audiences in India.

THE UNSURE MASSEUR Dir: Reid Waterer 14 min | 2021 | USA | English Trapped in our gig jobs economy, an aspiring masseur learns the sacrifices required from an experienced massage therapist.

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DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

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29 SUN

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TRANSKIDS Dir: Hilla Medalia 103 min | 2019 | Israel | Hebrew | Documentary Feature ‘Transkids’ is the result of four years of intimate and deep documentation of four teenagers and their families, shedding a brand new light on the personal and social impacts and implications of youth gender re-assigning - a subject which has been and still is controversial and delicate worldwide, and even more so in Israel.

Note: This film is available only for audiences in India.

Festivals & Honors: • MIPCOM Diversity TV Excellence Award 2019 • Best Documentary Feature - Signes of the Noite Film Festival, Lisbon Portugal January 2020 • Best Documentary Jury Prize - Edmonton International Film Festival • BENT Sacramento LGBTQ Film Festival 2019 • Merlinka LGBT Film Festival Belgrade Serbia 2019 • Miami Jewish Film Festival January 2020 • London Queer Film Festival March 2020 • Toronto Jewish Film Festival 2020

Hilla Medalia

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HILLA MEDALIA is a Peabody Award-winning filmmaker and producer who has received three Emmy nominations. Her projects have garnered critical acclaim and screened internationally in theaters and on television including HBO, MTV, BBC and ARTE. Her range of titles includes Leftover Women 2019 (Tribeca, ARTE), The Oslo Diaries 2018 (Sundance, HBO, ARTE), Muhi 2017 (IDFA, HotDocs), Censored Voices 2015 (Sundance, Berlinale), The Go Go Boys 2014 (Cannes), Web Junkie 2014 (Sundance, POV, BBC), Dancing in Jaffa 2013 (Tribeca, IFC). Hilla has been awarded the Paris Human Rights Festival Jury Award, Golden Warsaw Phoenix, as well as the jury award at FIPA and more.

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SHORT FILMS PACKAGE

29 INDIAN MASALA MIX 2 SUN

PROGRAM

04

Total Duration: 107 min

Though the law has been changed and things are improving in favour of the LGBTQIA+ community, but still it will take time to get rid of the taboo attached with gender and sexuality. The second part of Indian Masala Mix showcases four such stories about identities, families and lovers.

Post screening Q&A can be viewed online at KASHISH YouTube Channel, and on KASHISH Facebook page.

DAWN (Bhor) Dir: Rounak Bhatia 5 min | 2020 | Hindi After his wife’s demise, an elderly man reconnects with his childhood love. Will the society accept it?

PAUL 10 Dir: Sunil Revankar 19 min | 2021 | Konkani | In Competition Paul is madly fascinated by the Indian women's football player Ngangom Bala Devi and aspires to play in the forward position like her. That dream gets shattered as the football association expels him from the team when a hidden truth about Paul’s identity comes to light. Will Paul be able to play again!

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VAIDYA

Dirs: Sumit Pawar, Harsh Agarwal 22 min | 2021 | Hindi, English On a trip to Goa, Kabir meets the mysterious Vaidya at a beach. The two fall for each other and have a romantic liason. Soon Kabir leaves with a promise to come back, somehow he is not able to. Longing for him, Vaidya follows him to the city but during the confrontation, true identity of Vaidya is revealed.

MY MOTHER'S GIRLFRIEND Dir: Arun Fulara 15 min | 2021 | Hindi, Marathi Renuka and Sadiya, two women in love with each other, enjoy their day out celebrating Renuka's Birthday and even the night together, unaware of the presence of Mangesh, Renuka’s son.

My Mother's Girlfriend is the story of what happens when these two relationships collide.

This film is being made under the KASHISH QDrishti Film Grant 2020.

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29 SUN

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05

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

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ALL TOGETHER (Tuttinsieme) Dir: Marco Simon Puccioni 83 min | 2020 | Italy | Italian | Documentary Feature The film is an intimate dialogue between two fathers who trace back the last four years of the growth of their twins. They remember how their children coped with, in different ages, living in a family with two fathers, answering their companions' questions about the mother or playing on names and roles. As they cultivate the affectionate relationship with the American families of the “dede” and the “dona” who allowed the birth of the children, they too participate in the celebration of the civil union of the couple. The same-sex parents seek, among different sensitivities, the names to be given to people of extended families created with assisted procreation techniques.

Note: This film is available only for audiences in India.

Post screening Q&A can be viewed online at KASHISH YouTube Channel, and on KASHISH Facebook page.

Festivals & Honors: • Biografilm • Bangkok Dok Festival • Pink Apple • Millennim Docs Against Gravity Film Festival

Marco Simon Puccioni

MARCO SIMON PUCCIONI is a Fulbright scholar, and has a strong interest in social issues as well as the elaboration of an original film language and has been celebrated in major film festivals around the world. His debut film Quello Che Cerchi (What You’re Looking For), and his second feature film Riparo (Shelter Me) have travelled to over 90 international festivals and was awarded the Golden Globe, the David di Donatello, and the Nastro D’argento. His documentary feature, Il Colore Delle Parole (The Color Of The Words) opened in competition at the Venice Film Festival 2009. His documentary feature, Prima Di Tutto (Before Anything Else) was aired by RAI in 2012 and was awarded the Silver Ribbon.

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NARRATIVE FEATURE

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28 SAT

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06

A PERFECTLY NORMAL FAMILY (En helt almindelig familie) Dir: Malou Reymann 93 min | 2020 | Denmark | Danish | Narrative Feature Emma (Kaya Toft Loholt), till she was 11 years old, had a perfectly normal family… until one day her father Thomas (Mikkel Boe Følsgaard) says he wants to live the rest of his life as a woman. Emma is thrown completely off kilter. Thomas makes a rapid transition into Agnete: a woman in stylish dresses who suddenly has no more interest in football.

As Thomas becomes Agnete, both father and daughter struggle to hold on to what they had, while accepting that everything has changed.

Based on real life-experience of the director whose father came out as a transgender person, the director sensitively shows how family dynamics must be remapped.

Note: This film is available only for audiences in India.

Festivals & Honors: • Winner: Big Screen Award - Rotterdam International Film Festival 2020 • Winner: Best Actress (Kaya Toft Loholt) and Arbejdernes Landsbank Talent Award (Malou Reymann) - Bodil Awards 2021 • Winner: Best Children/Youth Film Award & Best Make-up at Danish Film Awards (Robert) 2021 • Winner: Special Jury Diploma Full-Length Competition at Molodist International Film Festival 2020 • Winner: Best Actress (Kaya Toft Loholt) & Best Director at Riviera International Film Festival 2021

Malou Reymann

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MALOU REYMANN started acting in her early teens and was nominated for a Danish Academy Award and a Danish Critics Award for her role in Hella Joof’s feature film Hush Little Baby (2009). She has a BA in literature from the University of Copenhagen and an MA in Directing Fiction at the National Film & TV School in England (2016). She has directed a number of short films at the DFI Film workshop. 13 won the Best Short Film award at Odense Film Festival in 2011 and she was nominated for a Robert for Oslo-Copenhagen in 2014. Her short film Interruption, funded by New Danish Screen, has been selected for a number of festivals, including CPH PIX in 2015. A Perfectly Normal Family is Malou’s first feature film and is inspired by her own life.

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THE TEACHER (El Maestro) Dirs: Cristina Tamagnini & Julián Dabien 70 min | 2020 | Argentina | Spanish | Narrative Feature Natalio (Diego Velázquez) is a dedicated primary school teacher. His life revolves around his students and his mother, with whom Natalio lives. Natalio’s comfortable and ordered life is disrupted when his friend Juani (Ezequiel Tronconi) comes to live in the town. Soon their relationship becomes the focus of speculations among the town’s residents who start even demanding to forbid Natalio from teaching at the school. A loving relationship between the two men tears away the facade of the town residents exposing their prejudices and hypocrisies.

Post screening Q&A can be viewed online at KASHISH YouTube Channel, and on KASHISH Facebook page.

Festivals & Honors: • Winner: Best Actor / SAGAI Award - Festival Internacional de Cine de las Alturas, Argentina 2020 • Winner: Best Actor at MAFICI, Puerto Madryn, Argentina 2020 • Way OUT West LGBT Film Fest, USA 2020 • 33 Image+Nation LGBTQueer Film Festival, Canada 2020 • Asterisco International LGBT Film Festival, Argentina 2020 • Primeiro Plano Festival de Cinema, Brazil 2020 • Festival del Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano de La Habana, Cuba 2020 • OutShine Miami LGBT Film Festival, USA 2021 • Mix Mexico Queer Film Festival, 2021 CRISTINA TAMAGNINI studied film at the UNC, Argentina and her Master's degree in Screenwriting in Valencia, Spain. She has a vast experience as a producer. Since 2012 she resides in Salta. She is co-founder of Caschi Cine where she develops projects for film and TV as Executive Producer, Screenwriter and Director. The Teacher is her first feature film.

Cristina Tamagnini & Julián Dabien

JULIÁN DABIEN always focused on his aesthetic, photographic and audiovisual training. He works as a photographer, camera technician and lights for film productions, advertising, video clips. He has been directing film projects in Argentina and Mexico. He is the co-director of The Teacher, which is his first feature film.

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THU YOUNG, QUEER & RESTLESS PROGRAM

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Total Duration: 109 min

Seven short documentaries, most of these are made by queer, non-binary, first-time or student filmmakers focusing on queer youth narratives that capture their anxieties of growing up with a queer or gender-non conforming identity, and also highlight their creative expressions, optimism and zeal for a better world.

THE SILENT B (B Não é de Biscoito) Dirs: Hilda Lopes Pontes, Chris Mariani 16 min | 2020 | Brazil | Portuguese Four next gen people have a candid chat about the myths, taboos and stereotypes regarding bisexuality that prevail in society and even in LGBTQ+ community. As one of the persons in the film has said - it is all about people with whom you fall in love, you care, you feel horny, irrespective of their sex and gender.

VISIBLE Dirs: Elena Hutchison, Chisom Ukoha, Autumn Love 6 min | 2020 | USA | English A student-filmed documentary grown out of the Coronavirus pandemic of 2020, Visible is a story chronicling the lives of trans and non-binary young people as they face one of the most difficult years in history. The film seeks to answers how quarantine affects gender presentation--and most importantly-hopes to shed light on a community easily forgotten in the shadows of the pandemic.

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ABOUT QUEENS AND OTHER COLORS (De reinas y otros colores) Dir: Juan H. Zuluaga 17 min | 2020 | Guatemala | Spanish With a necessity to express themselves, five young men gathered in an abandoned house share their experiences, frustrations, dreams and opinions on what it is like to be a Drag Queen, in a conservative country like Guatemala.

Note: This Film is available only for audiences in india.

THE DRAG MANIFESTO Dir: Felipe Follador 6 min | 2021 | Netherlands | English Three drag artists, from a new generation of performers, discuss the art of drag and share their drag manifesto.

CROSSINGS (Traversées) Dir: Amandine Le Goff 18 min | 2020 | France | French Léon reflects on his gender identity when he wears a one-piece bathing suit to a local swimming pool.

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PERSONAJE THE DRAGPERSONAJE MANIFESTO Dir: Renata Rezende, Begoña Izquierdo Dirs: Renata Rezende, Begoña Izquierdo 35 min| 2020 | Spain | Spanish A brief collage portrait of a young queer artist who deals with the intimate problems of maturing, while lending his body to other entities during his performances, in his quest to break with conventional establishment transformism.

FROM ME TO WE (Eingondagi Eikhoida) Dir: Neeraj Churi 11 min | 2020 | UK, India | English An uplifting film about the journey of Sadam as he battles his internal and external demons growing up gay in Manipur, India. Fighting homophobia, rape and drug addition, he raises to change the very society that was responsible for his downward spiral.

Made as part of NYFA Documentary filmmaking course, the film was made using zoom interviews during lockdown in India and UK.

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YOURS ANIMATEDLY

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Total Duration: 68 min

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Your favorite package of ‘toons’ with pink hearts returns this time with seven stories in all forms and shapes - from fables to urban legends to sci-fi with underlying themes of love, respect and acceptance for all. Few of these are produced as a collaborative project among artists during the lockdown celebrating the unstoppable human spirit,

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MATES Dir: Anna Lucía Alcalá Pérez 7 min | 2020 | Mexico | No Dialogues This is a story about soul mates, and how a relationship - of any kind - isn't black and white; it's a life full of color. Sometimes just one person is enough for us to feel less lonely.

MORE THAN 2 Dir: Yen Sheng, Wu 9 min | 2020 | Taiwan | Chinese Robin and Ashley are two aliens on a secret mission to record and experience human life and culture.

They get shocked by the gender stereotype norms in human society, and decide to return to their planet to find true freedom.

SHOSHI BEN-ABRAHAM: GOOD WITCH (USUALLY) Dir: Inbar Fink 15 min | 2020 | Israel | Hebrew An Urban-Fantasy story about witches, zombies, love and overcoming the influence of toxic parents - a story of a young Witch from Tel-Aviv who gets into financial troubles.

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UNWANTED GIFT Dir: Bomin Lee 8 min | 2020 | Korea | Korean, English In the dark night, a girl in an alley, has her gift back from a woman, which she didn't want.

THE SAPPHO PROJECT: FRAGMENT 147 Dir: Sari Katharyn 10 min | 2021 | UK | English and many more Two women find each other time and time again, loving each other through all their lifetimes.

Made entirely during lockdown by student artists, this animated film is a collective piece of art, dedicated to one of the most famous lyrical fragments that remain from the lesbian poet Sappho: fragment 147. To celebrate the fragment’s poignant reflection on memory and legacy “Someone will remember us, I say … even in another time” - translations of these words were recorded in Bulgarian, Catalan, Cebuano, Croatian, Danish, Dutch, French, Galician, German by queer women from all over the world.

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NUDE TRIUMPHANT Dir: Leo Crane 8 min | 2020 | UK | English Jay rushes to get ready for another frantic day.

Armoured against the sights and sounds of the City, he races against time until a chance encounter propels him into a strange watercolour world. Here, three Nudes reveal their truth and an enigmatic Professor directs time. But will Jay dare to expose himself in order to find the clarity and connection he seeks?

Nude Triumphant combines painting from life with experimental digital animation, produced during the Covid-19 lockdown with a community of Queer and intersectional life models and artists. The film encourages us to pause and reflect, discovering our unique identities in stillness, and building a healthier relationship with time and with ourselves.

KAPAEMAHU Dirs: Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu, Dean Hamer, Joe Wilson 9 min | 2020 | USA | Hawaiian Narrated in an ancient Hawaiian dialect and portrayed by vivid animation through the eyes of a curious child, Kapaemahu reveals the legend about the healing power of four mysterious stones on Waikiki Beach – and the legendary dual male and female spirits within them.

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ONCE A FURY Dir: Jacqueline Rhodes

83 min | 2020 | USA | English | Documentary Feature Once A Fury is a documentary that profiles The Furies, a 1970s radical collective that developed a lesbian-feminist politic to correct what they called the "zig-zag and haphazard" thinking of the straight women's movement. The collective was thus formed in resistant counterpoint to the larger women’s movement, much as that larger womenʼs movement itself was formed in counterpoint to the male-dominated New Left of the 1960s. That is, just as activists in the women’s movement experienced sexism in the New Left, lesbian activists experienced homophobia in the women’s movement. Such activists formed collectives like the Furies. The collective was intense and shortlived: twelve women began the group, worked together, and then broke up in under two years. In that short time, they wrote and published a widely read newspaper The Furies that advanced their ideology and still seems relevant half a century later. The documentary features interviews with 10 of the original 12 Furies, photography by JEB (Joan E. Biren), and archival materials.

Post screening Q&A can be viewed online at KASHISH YouTube Channel, and on KASHISH Facebook page Festivals: • Paris Independent Film Festival, France 2020 • Rainbow Umbrella Film Festival, UK 2021

Jacqueline Rhodes

JACQUELINE RHODES is a Professor of Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures at MSU. Her scholarly work focuses on intersections of rhetoric, materiality and technology, and has been published in a variety of venues.

Techne (https://ccdigitalpress.org/book/techne/), a multimedia project co-authored with Jonathan Alexander, won the 2016 CCCC Lavender Rhetorics Award for Excellence in Queer Scholarship. Her co-edited collection Sexual Rhetorics (Routledge, 2017) won the same award in 2017.

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THU UNLOCK WITH PRIDE PROGRAM

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Total Duration: 54 min

Reflecting the theme of KASHISH 2021, here are five short films of different genres, with one common message - no one has the right to mark the boundaries for anyone.

All such boundaries must be erased and all such locks be opened, so that everyone is treated equal, and have the right to live with respect and pride.

PLAYER Dir: Sabrina Duarte 6 min | 2019 | Brazil | Portuguese | Music Video With a song on their lips and pride in their hearts, a trans-women choir sings in solidarity against the violence towards trans-women in Brazil. Featuring Brazilian trans rapper and multimedia artist Linn da Quebrada, this music video is a way to affirm the life of the trans- woman in all spaces.

BE REBORN (Renacer) Dir: Agustín Domínguez 5 min | 2019 | Spain | Spanish | Narrative Short A powerful monologue about women unlocking themselves, reaffirming that the closets are meant for clothes, not for them. Young or old, queer or non-queer they must reclaim their respect and pride.

BRAZIL'S FORBIDDEN SHIRT (A Camisa Proibida) Dirs: Diego Mello, Igor França, João Pedro Castro, Rafael de Moura Machado 11 min | 2019 | Brazil | Portuguese | Documentary Short

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Brazil is known as the football country, due to its passion for the game and its international success.

But on a closer look one realizes how it is also filled with homophobia, excluding LGBTQ+ people from the game, from the stands, and in a curious way even excluding a number from the jerseys. Things are finally looking up - hats off to the LGBTQ+ footballers for holding their ground.

MAKING SAMANTHA Dirs: T Cooper, Allison Glock-Cooper 11 min | 2020 | USA | English | Documentary Short I Am Samantha by singer-songwriter Benjamin Scheuer, was inspired by his friend, Samantha Williams. 27 trans actors come together to make the music video, and to tell the story of the universal human journey to find identity, acceptance and love.

EAT THE RAINBOW Dir: Brian Benson 20 min | 2019 | USA | English | Musical Short A musical fable about an odd yet kind man named Bayani (H.P. Mendoza) who moves into a conservative suburban neighborhood and disrupts the otherwise comfortable homogeny. He doesn’t look or act like anyone else, which causes fear and panic and eventually a demand for him to leave the neighborhood. Cousin Wonderlette befriends Bayani and together they take on the opposition led by manipulative and unscrupulous realtor Lobelia Gerber.

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WELL ROUNDED SEX, SIN & 69 Dir: Shana Myara | 61 min | 2020 | Canada | English | Documentary Feature Dir: Sarah Fodey 83 | English | Documentary Feature 75 min min || 2020 2019 || USA Canada | English | Documentary Feature

Well Rounded starts from the understanding that being fat is ok. Blending gorgeous Sex, Sin & 69 is a 80-minute historical, retrospective film about the 1969 legislation to interviews with dreamy animation, director Shana Myara assembles personal stories ‘decriminalize’ homosexuality. Told through contemporary voices including queer from a diverse, captivating cast whose horrors, triumphs and commitment to dreaming academics, historians, activists, educators, artists, and community builders, the film large offer BIG inspiration -- especially for those of us who don't often see our BIPOC, attempts to challenge our understanding of queer history by shining a light on widely LGB2TQ+, disabled and/or fat selves celebrated on screen. adopted misconceptions surrounding decriminalization.

Edgy, hilarious, unapologetically raunchy, and sometimes tear-jerking, Well Rounded Festivals & Honors: brings you your new super queer XXXL racialized BFFs in comedy, fashion, health and •research Out North Canada 2019pesky systemic fatphobias that threaten to make you to Film helpFest, combat those • Pride PEI Screening, Canada 2019 hate yourself -- when actually you're PLENTY amazing just as you are.

• Prince Edward Island Screening, Canada 2019 •Note: Royal Screening, Canada 2019 ThisBC filmMuseum is available only for audiences in India.

• Reelout Queer Film + Video Festival, Canada 2020 screening Q&A can beDocumentary viewed online at KASHISH YouTube Channel, •Post Bellevile International Film Festival, Canada 2020 and on KASHISH Facebook •page.

World Community Film Festival, Canada 2020 Festivals & Honors: SARAH FODEY is an accomplished Producer, Writer, and Director. Her • Image+Nation Festival Cinema LGBT Montreal Film 2020 22-year career in motion storytelling has spanned feature films, scripted • Inside Out Toronto LGBT Film Festival 2020 factual entertainment, and documentary production. Sarah has • Rio Festival series, De Cinema LGBTQIA+, Brazil 2021 createdFilm content for networks including CBC, Global, APTN, Comedy, • 10th Rio LGBTQIA+ Festival, Brazil 2021 TVO, Unis, and TFO. In Film 2018, Sarah wrote directed the • Winner: BestBravo!, Canadian Film - Reelout Queer Festival, Canadaand 2021 Sarah • Vancouver Queer Film Festival, Canada 2021 feature-length documentary The Fruit Machine (CSA-nominated Best Fodey Documentary), and produced the Telefilm Canada french language film

SHANA MYARA is an award-winning writer. She is a curator, recovered Noël en boîte. festival director and community arts programmer who has cultivated arts and dialogue for social change for over 20 years. Well Rounded is her first feature length film.

Shana Myara

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VIVA FEMALE FILMMAKERS!

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Total Duration: 99 min

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Queer cinema or films with LGBTQIA+ protagonists have been here for long, so are the women filmmakers who have been ably telling stories, not necessarily about lesbians but about the wide LGBTQIA+ spectrum.

KASHISH 2021 is happy and honoured to have the participation of 80 women filmmakers with their films of different genres, shining throughout the program under different film packages. Here we have hand-picked six films by women filmmakers as a representation to the wide themes and diversity of the work women create behind the camera, which will keep haunting you even after the screening.

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NIGHT DRIVE (J'ai cru que tu partais sans moi) Dir: Despina Athanassiadis 17 min | 2019 | France | French Sabine, a 50 years old female truck driver, works for a French company which has recently been acquired by a conglomerate. This challenges Sabine's position there.

BODIES Dir: Morvarid Kashiyan 15 min | 2020 | Islamic Republic of Iran | Persian Hamoon, an upcoming theatre actor and a transsexual, has secretly fallen in love with his director. With the new play to open soon Hamoon battles to get his conservative father’s consent for his sex change surgery, as well as to confess his love to the director.

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SCREENSHOTS FOR A GOODBYE Dir: Ruth Caudeli 10 min |2020 | Colombia | Spanish Andrea and Maca are facing the day after a break-up, and they are going to struggle with all the difficulties that come after a goodbye. How hard is to say goodbye to someone you have loved?

ALI'S SECRET (Serr Ali ‫ع‬ ‫)سر‬

Dir: Mona Daoud 28 min | 2020 | Egypt | Arabic Ali and his wife Nadia have a tense relationship, strained by jealousy and sexual frustration. When Ali's long estranged friend, Hussein, suddenly comes to town and stays with them for the weekend, tensions between all three erupt to the surface, revealing a deeply suppressed secret, they must all come to terms with.

ROADKILL Dir: Aliza Brugger 16 min |2020 | USA | English Tillie's lonely life as a roadkill removal worker is destabilized when Wanda, a lively stranger, comes to town.

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NOOR & LYLA

Dir: Fawzia Mirza 13 min | 2021 | Canada | English Noor & Layla are breaking up. Is it the end of the road for these two Muslim women… or is it just a beginning?

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CICADA

Dir: Matthew Fifer, Kieran Mulcare 94 min | 2020 | USA | English | Narrative Feature After a string of unsuccessful and awkward encounters with women, Ben (Matthew Fifer, also the director) goes ‘back on the dick’. The film follows him, a young bisexual man, as he comes out to the world and develops an intense relationship with Sam (Sheldon D. Brown, also the co-writer), a man of color struggling with deep wounds of his own. They quickly grow very close to each other, each admitting personal secrets that they had never really told anyone else before. Ben comes forward about his childhood sexual abuse, and post-traumatic stress disorder, from being shot years before; while Sam admits that he has not come out yet to his extremely religious father. As the summer progresses and their intimacy grows, they soon realize that each must come to terms with their traumas, if the relationship is to survive.

Note: This film is available only for audiences in India.

Festivals & Honors: • Audience Award - Image+Nation Festival Cinema LGBT Montreal Film 2020 • Jury Prize - LesGaiCineMad, Madrid International LGBT Film Festival 2020 • Honorable Mention ( Narrative Feature) - NewFest: New York's LGBT Film Festival 2020 • 2nd Place for Jury Prize in Best Feature at OUTshine Film Festival • Audience Award (Best Narrative Feature) - Oslo/Fusion International Film Festival 2020 • Jury Award (Best Feature Film) - Out Film CT Connecticut LGBTQ Film Festival 2020 • Jury Award (Best Feature) + Audience Award (Best Male Feature) - Roze Filmdagen: Amsterdam LGBTQ Film Festival 2021

Matthew Fifer

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MATTHEW FIFER is a Brooklyn based filmmaker. He studied under Sherrybaby director, Laurie Collyer, and had an education in theory and philosophy. He’s worked on shorts, commercials, and big budget features like The Avengers and A Late Quartet. In Matthew 2016 and 2017, he made IndieWire’s Fifer Top 10 list for best web series of the year. Cicada is his feature directorial debut.

KIERAN MULCARE is a graduate of the UNC School of the Arts. He is best known for playing Ruben in Netflix/Marvel’s Jessica Jones and the White Rabbit in Fox/DC’s Gotham. Other acting credits include The Blacklist, Law and Order: SVU, Broad City, The Following, the independent shorts Olfactory, and Jewish Girls Are Easy. Cicada is his directorial debut.

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INTERNATIONAL NARRATIVE SHORTS COMPETITION – III

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Total Duration: 94 min

The third and final part of this year’s nominations for the Best International Narrative Short Film award highlights five moving short films, with strong narratives dealing with desires, and combating one’s own fears.

Post screening Q&A can be viewed online at KASHISH YouTube Channel, and on KASHISH Facebook page.

FABIU Dir: Stefan Langthaler 30 min | 2020 | Austria | German 80-year-old retiree Arthur lives in a modest home in Vienna. For quite some time he has lovingly been caring for his seriously ill wife Martha, with only female nurses assisting him. When the new male Hungarian care worker Fabiu enters the picture, his routine is broken. But soon the two men become closer and inside Arthur, feelings of desire and suppressed longing start to rise.

APRIL´S LAST MEMORIES (Los últimos recuerdos de Abril) Dir: Nancy Cruz Orozco 21 min | 2020 | Mexico | Spanish Camila and Abril grew up together in a small town on the coast and are best friends. April's family will move to the city, their paths will have to separate forever.

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STRAY DOGS COME OUT AT NIGHT Dir: Hamza Bangash 11 min | 2020 | Pakistan | Urdu Karachi, Pakistan. Iqbal, a migrant sex worker, cannot come to terms with his illness. He convinces his uncle to take a day trip to the beach, desperate for respite. The Arabian sea beckons.

THE ACT Dir: Thomas Hescott 18 min | 2020 | UK | English It’s 1965, the eve of decriminalization for acts of male homosexuality. Matthews, a young gay man at odds with the world and his own sexuality discovers love, sex and a family in the backstreets and underground bars of Soho.

THE SILENCE OF THE RIVER El silencio del rio) Dir: Francesca Canepa 14 min | 2020 | Peru | Spanish Juan, a 9 year-old Peruvian boy, lives with his silent dad in a floating house on the breathtaking Amazon River. This idyllic background sets an allegorical journey into the rainforest jungle, where nature, gender, truth and all things begin to reveal the identity of his dad.

Note: This film is available only for audiences in India.

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LOCKDOWN STORIES

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Total Duration: 78 min

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Since last one year a lot has changed all over the world, few new terms have surfaced, we have explored new ways to survive, and now a new normal seems to be steering our lives. This mix package of six short films portrays some relatable stories and moments from those days. These films show the challenges of social isolation, but at the same time reaffirm the invincible human spirit

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QUEER FEAR Dir: Carla Elizabeth Hernandez 5 min | 2020 | Canada | English | Documentary Short An emotional breakdown followed by a global pandemic, forced Carla to sit in isolation with her thoughts after years of avoiding them. Realizing now more than ever how important self care is, she begins looking for the answers to accept her sexual identity she had been avoiding all these years.

GERMINATION Dir: Mitchell Bueno 10 min | 2020 | USA | English | Narrative Short A trans artist is faced with the fear of running out of testosterone, and how that impacts his art while in quarantine.

THE SILENCE THAT YOU DO (O Silêncio Que Você Faz) Dir: Evandro Souza 22 min | 2021 | Brazil | Portuguese | Narrative Short Eduardo is in social isolation due to the pandemic.

With an exhausting and inert routine, aggravated by a great loss, he gradually isolates himself not only from the outside world, but from himself.

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LOVE X BITES Dir: Yupar Momo, M. Noe 18 min | 2020 | Myanmar | Burmese |Narrative Short During Covid19 outbreak, two women enter the quarantine at a hotel and share a room. Soon, sexual tensions flare up and they find themselves in a passionate affair. But a dark secret is about to rupture this bliss.

IT'LL BE OVER SOON Dir: Benjamin Rigby 11 min | 2020 | Australia, USA | English | Narrative Short When the pandemic hits, two men are forced to evaluate their unexpected long distance relationship.

BEAT 97 Dir: Washington Calegari 12 min | 2020 | Brazil | Portuguese | Narrative Short Alvaro is on day ninety-seven of quarantine during the pandemic, lonely and horny. Is he imagining a flirtation between himself and his delivery man?

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SEX, SIN & 69 Dir: Dir: Sarah Sarah Fodey Fodey

75 75 min min || 2019 2019 || Canada Canada || English English || Documentary Documentary Feature Feature Sex, Sex, Sin Sin && 69 69 is is aa 80-minute 80-minute historical, historical, retrospective retrospective film film about about the the 1969 1969 legislation legislation to to ‘decriminalize’ ‘decriminalize’ homosexuality. homosexuality. Told Told through through contemporary contemporary voices voices including including queer queer academics, academics, historians, historians, activists, activists, educators, educators, artists, artists, and and community community builders, builders, the the film film attempts attempts to to challenge challenge our our understanding understanding of of queer queer history history by by shining shining aa light light on on widely widely adopted adopted misconceptions misconceptions surrounding surrounding decriminalization. decriminalization.

Festivals Festivals && Honors: Honors: •• Out Out North North Film Film Fest, Fest, Canada Canada 2019 2019 •• Pride Pride PEI PEI Screening, Screening, Canada Canada 2019 2019 •• Prince Prince Edward Edward Island Island Screening, Screening, Canada Canada 2019 2019 •• Royal Royal BC BC Museum Museum Screening, Screening, Canada Canada 2019 2019 •• Reelout Reelout Queer Queer Film Film ++ Video Video Festival, Festival, Canada Canada 2020 2020 •• Bellevile Bellevile International International Documentary Documentary Film Film Festival, Festival, Canada Canada 2020 2020 •• World World Community Community Film Film Festival, Festival, Canada Canada 2020 2020

Sarah Sarah Fodey Fodey

SARAH SARAH FODEY FODEY is is an an accomplished accomplished Producer, Producer, Writer, Writer, and and Director.

Director. Her Her 22-year 22-year career career in in motion motion storytelling storytelling has has spanned spanned feature feature films, films, scripted scripted series, series, factual factual entertainment, entertainment, and and documentary documentary production. production. Sarah Sarah has has created created content content for for networks networks including including CBC, CBC, Global, Global, APTN, APTN, Comedy, Comedy, Bravo!, Bravo!, TVO, TVO, Unis, Unis, and and TFO. TFO. In In 2018, 2018, Sarah Sarah wrote wrote and and directed directed the the feature-length feature-length documentary documentary The The Fruit Fruit Machine Machine (CSA-nominated (CSA-nominated Best Best Documentary), Documentary), and and produced produced the the Telefilm Telefilm Canada Canada french french language language film film Noël Noël en en boîte. boîte.

Supported Supported by: by:

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GRIT. GUTS. GLORY

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Total Duration: 89 min

A package of five short films depicting the stories of courage and resilience, reassuring that no matter how the world tries to pull you down, one must gather the courage to confront those challenges, and live up to one’s dreams.

After all - When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going!

A POUND OF FLESH Dir: Oliwia Siem 11 min | 2020 | UK | English A desperate employee gambles a pound of their own flesh against a large sum of their boss's cash, with life-altering consequences.

ROCKY Dir: Dani Seguí 11 min | 2020 | Spain | Catalan Roc, a high school student with Down Syndrome has decided that his end of the year performance, is the playback of a very special musical number. But the director of his school will not allow it under any circumstances.

DEAD MODEL, LIFE MODEL (Modelo Morto, Modelo Vivo) Dirs: Luri Bermudes, Leona Jhovs 25 min | 2020 | Brazil | Portugueset Manuela, a transgender woman, when attending a living model drawing workshop, awakens to her own beauty and power. Modelo Morto, Modelo Vivo builds a positive narrative of affection and self-love for transgender people.

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HALWA Dirs: Gayatri Bajpai, Nirav Bhakta 15 min |2019 | USA | Hindi, English Sujata, an elderly docile housewife learns about the passing of her childhood companion’s spouse.

Having been cut off from her for over 30 years, Sujata musters courage to reach out to send her condolences via Facebook. Their rekindled bond doesn’t really go well with Sujata’s abusive husband.

GOD'S DAUGHTER DANCES Dir: Sungbin Byun 25 min | 2020 | Republic of Korea | Korean A transgender female dancer, Shin-mi, gets a call from the Military Manpower Administration, to attend for the Military Service Examination. Shin-mi, with everything in readiness, takes her steps to the Military Manpower Administration.

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PRIDE & PROTEST Dir: Blaise Singh

90 min | 2020 | UK | English | Documentary Feature | In Competition After the media frenzy around the Birmingham anti-LGBTQ+ protests against relationships education in primary schools, by a group of Muslim community members, a team of queer community reporters from various ethnic, religious and cultural backgrounds in West London came together to challenge the persecution, intolerance and discrimination QPOC face, by voicing and showing their own life journeys in the form of a documentary project. Pride & Protest is the filmic synthesis of the many conversations shared by the Rainbow Films team on important but often ignored issues met by QPOC about racism within the larger queer community, as well as issues around intersectionality and visible diversity in the more mainstream and white hetero-normative society they live in.

Post screening Q&A can be viewed online at KASHISH YouTube Channel, and on KASHISH Facebook page.

Festivals & Honors: • World Premiere: BFI Flare London, UK 2020 • Scottish Queer International Film Festival, UK 2020 • Coalition of South Asian Film Festivals, 2020 • CineQ and SHOUT Festival, UK 2020 • Tel Aviv International LGBTQ Film Festival, Israel 2020

Blaise Singh

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BLAISE SINGH started his career as music video director working with over 100 artists in Urban and Bhangra music.

Following this he was a producer/director for TV talent show Make Me A Brit Asia Superstar for 10 episodes. After a successful run of his online video channel called UBTV, Blaise set up a charitable film and video production company called Make A Difference Entertainment (MADE), under which he has produced a number of short film and documentary projects which have been screened in association with BFI Future Film.

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VERSUS

Dir: Ralston G. Jover 99 min | 2020 | Philippines | Tagalog | Narrative Feature | In Competition Leo nee Lea (Gabby Eigenmann), a Filipino transgender comes home for the first time after years of working and living in Australia. She anxiously decides to meet her children at the airport. But her ex-wife Baby (Sunshine Dizon) raises hell upon finding about it. Tension escalates and they end up in a custody battle over their children in court. In the court the judge considers the ground of homosexuality as a disadvantage for Leo/Lea to keep her children.

Versus is an emotional film about a transgender woman fights for her right to be accepted as a woman, and her right to be the custodial mother to her biological children.

Post screening Q&A can be viewed online at KASHISH YouTube Channel, and on KASHISH Facebook page.

Ralston G. Jover

RALSTON G. JOVER hails from Manila, where he attended Creative Writing and Film Studies at the Mowelfund Film Institute. His first big break came in 2006 when he wrote Kubrador (The Bet Collector), tackling the gambling menace called jueteng in the Philippines. Then he went on to write Manoro (The Teacher), about an indigenous girl who teaches a literacy program to her tribe members, and in 2007, Foster Child, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival’s Directors’ Fortnight.

In 2009, Ralston directed his first full-length film entitled Bakal Boys (Children Metal Divers), after which he has directed several films and TV shows. His films have won numerous awards, including Best Screenplay awards in Thessaloniki, Greece and the Skip-City D-Cinema Film Festivals in Japan.

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NARRATIVE FEATURE

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BOY MEETS BOY Dir: Daniel Sanchez Lopez

75 min | 2021 | Germany | English, German | Narrative Feature Harry (Matthew James Morrison) has been partying for 48 hours when he meets Johannes (Alexandros Koutsoulis) on the dance floor of a club in Berlin. With 15 hours until his flight home, Johannes offers to help him print his boarding pass. This mundane task leads to a day together wandering the city. The contrasts in their lives and values force each one to confront their own truths.

Boys Meet Boys is a feature length mumblecore about the journey of a brief encounter: the mark left by a fleeting moment of joy.

Post screening Q&A can be viewed online at KASHISH YouTube Channel, and on KASHISH Facebook page.

Festivals & Honors: • World Premiere: BFI Flare London 2021 • Queer Spectrum aGLIFF Austin 2021 • Boston Wicked Queer 2021 • Winner: Sunny Bunny Prize - Molodist International Film Festival, Ukrain 2021 • Frameline San Francisco 2021

Daniel Sánchez López

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DANIEL SÁNCHEZ LÓPEZ holds a postgraduate degree in History and Aesthetics of Film and Fiction from the European Film College in Denmark. He has been part of the Doc School of Locarno Film Festival in 2017 and studied Low budget production in the International film school of Cuba in 2018. His short film Saft (2017) played at several festivals including Visionär Film Festival, KASHISH Mumbai International Queer Film Festival in India and Outfest Peru. Boy Meets Boy is his feature film debut.

07

Preceded By

THE DAY BEGAN YESTERDAY (El día comenzó ayer) Dir: Julian Hernandez 31 min | 2020 | Mexico | Spanish | Narrative Short Orlando and Saul meet by accident. The first one is a self-confident young man, university gymnast who avoids that his HIV-positive status defines him; while Saul, on the opposite, is insecure and barely understands what having an active sexual life means. The meeting will result in a new way of seeing life, one without fear where sex is an encounter and not a way of getting away from others.

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Total Duration: 69 min

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For synopses of the featuring short films please turn to Page 58

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SHORT FILMS PACKAGE

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STUDENT SHORTS COMPETITION – III

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Total Duration: 79 min

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PROGRAM

The third and final part of Students Shorts Competition with four vibrant films from Film & Media colleges from Europe and Asia, bring a refreshing take on exploration of one’s own identity, and the complexities of relationships and love.

02

Post screening Q&A with the Student Filmmakers can be viewed online at KASHISH YouTube Channel, and on KASHISH Facebook page

TODAY Dir: Francis Chillet 20 min | 2020 | France | French After three years abroad, Felix returns to his childhood village for Christmas. The memories come flooding back as he meets up again with old friends, and he retraces moments which have forged the man he has become today.

College: 3iS – Institut International de l’Image et du Son, Élancourt, France

ON A PATH Dir: Lihi Lubetkin 18 min | 2020 | Israel | Hebrew Nitzan is an introverted teenager that has always felt invisible to society. One day Neomi the girlfriend of Nitzan’s brother Erez, invited her to join them for an overnight trip, an invitation that led Nitzan down a path of self-discovery.

College: The Steve Tisch School of Film and Television, Tel-Aviv University, Israel

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DRIFTING Dir: Hanxiong Bo 17 min | 2020 | China | Chinese Disguised as a girl growing up during the time of one-child policy in China, Yan confuses about his gender identity and struggles with the conservative world around him now. Drifting in his dad’s old taxi becomes his way of expressing feelings. Tonight, he gets on a dreamy journey to find his missing sister back.

College: University of California, Los Angeles

SHIKHANDI Dirs: Sahil D. Gada 24 min | 2021 | India | Hindi Dev, a 20 year old boy, in love with theatre; lives with his widowed father. Dev explores and discovers his trans-identity through the mythological character of Shikhandi from the Mahabharata.

College: Whistling Woods International, Mumbai, India

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DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

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ADMITTED

Dir: Ojaswwee Sharma 117 min | 2018 | India | Hindi, English | Documentary Feature A biographical docudrama on the controversial life of Dhananjay Chauhan – the first transgender student of Panjab University – her life journey with thrust on education along with gender identification, dilemmas and expression in personal life. Admitted explores the largest case of Transgender Education in a mainstream public university of North India, the 1st public washroom for transgender persons in a public university, and developments for Transgender Rights, Education and acceptance to mainstream pre and post the historic NALSA Judgement of 2014 of adding 3rd Gender as a category.

Post screening Q&A can be viewed online at KASHISH YouTube Channel, and on KASHISH Facebook page.

Festivals & Honors: • Jagran Film Festival, Mumbai, India 2018 • Winner: Best Documentary at Bioscope Global Film Festival, Amritsar, India 2018 • New Delhi Film Festival, New Delhi, Indian 2018 • Independent Talents International Film Festival, California, USA 2018 • Tarang - Delhi International Queer Theatre & Film Festival, New Delhi, India 2018 •

Rajasthan International Film Festival, Jaipur, India 2019

•

Award Of Merit: Impact Doc Awards, La Jolla, USA 2019

Ojaswwee Sharma

OJASWWEE SHARMA is an Indian film director, producer and screenwriter based in Chandigarh, widely known for producing films and programs rooted in reality and raising pertinent issues. Right from the highly acclaimed award winning feature-documentary Admitted, short documentaries – SCARS: After A 100 Years Of Jallianwala Bagh Massacre and Samarpan, to short narratives Chaurassi, Zubaan, The Last Date, Lucky Kabootar, Rooh, Badalti Soch, Loneliness, Butter Toast, The Dichotomy of Hope, The Tide of Time and Bodybuilding The Indian Way, Ojaswwee’s films have successfully cemented their footprints to more than 37 prestigious film festivals across the globe.

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SHORT FILMS PACKAGE

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INDIAN NARRATIVE SHORTS COMPETITION

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PROGRAM

04

Total Duration: 87 min

This year’s nominations for the Best Indian Narrative Short Film award include six moving short films, with strong narratives dealing with desires, and combating one’s own fears and even reflecting on the challenges of the current pandemic.

Post screening Q&A with the Student Filmmakers can be viewed online at KASHISH YouTube Channel, and on KASHISH Facebook page

BEGUM PARVATHI Dir: Radhika Prasidhha 8 min | 2021 | India | Tamil Two women meet online. In the course of a few months, they develop an intimate connection over phone calls, texts and other virtual exchanges. The possibility of meeting in real life fills them with curiosity, hesitation, longing and maybe even a little bit of catastrophizing!

INSIDE (Akam) Dir: Jinesh VS 14 min | 2021 | India | Malayalam Aaru, a 25-year-old girl explores the underlying thrusts, senses, and insinuations of her psyche during the lockdown period. She finds comfort in the presence of her friend. They find bliss in their deep conversations and verbal expeditions. But gradually she is ascertained with a life-changing perception about herself. And she can’t process this apprehension. Inside is about how Aaru sorts that realization, or her life for that matter.

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CLOSETS (Almariyaan) Dir: Jiya Bhardwaj 18 min | 2020 | India | Hindi Speculating that their only son Karan is gay, Aarti and Mukesh - a middle class Indian parent sincerely attempts to make his coming out of ‘the closet’ a cakewalk. But when the actual truth comes out, they can’t come to terms with it. A perfect satire to bring out the importance and acceptance of the LGBTQIA+ community in India in the current times.

ARE WE THERE YET? Dirs: Bhanu Babbal, Kashyap Swaroop 7 min | 2021 | India | English, Hindi, Marathi When two contrasting personalities are thrown into a new world of constant cohabitation, under the creeping clouds of mortality, they are left to navigate through an important life decision together – revealing the truth of their relationship to a parent figure.

THE LONELY PRINCE

Dir: Shivin, Sunny 15 min | 2020 | India | English A lonely Prince, drowning in melancholy, invites a Sculptor to his court to create a piece of art just for him. As the Sculptor spends his days chiseling away on a block of marble, the Prince too discovers a new side of himself, for a brief moment forgetting the world of solitude that surrounds him.

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KEEP PUNCHING Dir: Kirnay Bhatt 25 min | 2020 | India | Hindi Inspired by true events, the story of a small town closeted lesbian boxer, Kirnay, who after winning her state level tournament; inches closer to her dream of representing the country. Indifferent to her ambitions, Krinay’s mother has already fixed her marriage. Torn between her family, love and ambition, Kirnay must fight the battle for her freedom outside the ring, before conquering her dreams inside it.

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LOVE, SPELLS AND ALL THAT Dir: Ümit Ünal

96 min | 2019 | Turkey | Turkish | Narrative Feature As teenagers, Eren (Ece Dizdar), the daughter of a powerful member of the parliament, and Reyhan (Selen Uçer), the daughter of the keeper in the summer house Eren’s family owns on the Istanbul island of Büyükada, had a forbidden love affair. When their relationship was revealed, Eren's family forced them to separate. The film begins 20 years later. Eren catches a glimpse of Reyhan on a local profile on social media, which prompts her to leave Europe and come looking for her. When she finds Reyhan, Eren tells her that she never loved anyone else like her and that she is still in love with her.

She wants to get back together. Unwilling to acknowledge their past at first, Reyhan soon begins to believe that a love spell she had put on Eren 20 years ago has brought her back to the island. The two embark on a day-long journey around the island to try and lift the old spell while taking a trip down memory lane.

Note: This film is available only for audiences in India.

Post screening Q&A can be viewed online at KASHISH YouTube Channel, and on KASHISH Facebook page.

Festivals & Honors: • Winner: Best Film Award, Best Women Actress Award, Behlül Dal Jury Special Award, • (Turkish Film Critics Association) - International Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival, Turkey 2020 • Winner: Best Film, Best Actress, Best Screenplay at İstanbul Film Festival, Turkey 2020 • Winner: Best Screenplay, Best Actress at Ankara International Film Festival, Turkey 2020 • Roze Filmdagen, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Ümit Ünal

ÜMIT ÜNAL is a Turkish film director, screenwriter and author. He is the scriptwriter for eight Turkish feature films including Teyzem (My Aunt) (1986), Hayallerim, Askim ve Sen (My Dreams, My Love and You) (1987).

His first feature film as a director is ‘9’ which won many awards in various film festivals and was the Official Turkish Entry for the 2003 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

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FAMILY MATTERS!

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PROGRAM

06

Total Duration: 109 min

Families are always at the epicentre of drama – some joyous, some sad, some extremely funny. Each individual has their own take on family. For some it’s the family that matters the most, while for others family is just another matter!

Here is a package of six short films with soul-touching stories about bonds broken, and bridges built.

SO LONG, PARIS! Dir: Charles Dudoignon-Valade 18 min | 2019 | France | English, French A bittersweet comedy about a fanciful and rebellious pre-teen who ends up accepting her parents' divorce after an unexpected encounter with her dad's male lover.

VINCENT BEFORE NOON (Vincent avant midi) Dir: Guillaume Mainguet 17 min | 2019 | France | French Vincent’s father pays him a visit after years of conflict, and turns up in the middle of his house move. Vincent reacts violently to that intrusion. Emotionally weakened, the father involuntarily reveals the true reason of his visit, which revives the tension between them.

NOONTIME DRAMA (Tanghaling Tapat) Dirs: Kim Timan, Sam Villa-Real 18 min | 2019 | France | English, French In the confines of her own kitchen, single mother Sonia struggles to prepare the perfect Kare-Kare with her daughter Leslie.

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SOLE MIO Dir: Maxime Roy 25 min | 2019 | France | French Since his father left for Nice, Daniel, 25, tries to manage Sole Mio Father & son, their family heating company. He is back in Lille for a night, as he is getting the final operation to definitely become a woman: Lisa. But Daniel’s Mum doesn’t know about this change, and the lie is weighing heavier on the young boy’s shoulders.

ONE-WAY GLASS Dir: Nauman Khalid 16 min | 2020 | UK | English, Panjabi Farzana is a hapless migrant Pakistani woman who is trapped in a violent, sexless, loveless marriage.

She is caught in the harsh realities of modern-day London, trying to make a living whilst also struggling through the trials and tribulations of her failing marriage, till one day she discovers a truth about her husband.

BEAUTY BOYS

Dir: Florent Gouelou 18 min | 2019 | France | French In a small village, Leo, 17 years-old, has a strong liking for make-up. His big brother, Jules, who fears to be laughed at, stands against this passion. On the night of the open stage, Leo shows up in full drag.

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NARRATIVE FEATURE

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SAT PROGRAM

THE TEACHER (Wo de ling hun shi ai zuo de) Dir: Ming-Lang Chen

92 min | 2019 | Taiwan | Mandarin | Narrative Feature When the 26-year-old Civics teacher, Kevin (Oscar Chiu), openly voices his stance on marriage equality at school, he stirs up a storm. His being madly in love with an HIV positive man Jin-Wu Gao (Chin-Hao Chang) doesn't sit well with all the people around him. After revealing his affair, Kevin must face his mother (Tzu-hua Ho) with whom he still lives. When a rumour spreads that Kevin is also HIV positive, his school administration takes every avenue available to force his resignation, while he manoeuvres the fear of AIDS and a compounded love triangle with his lover's wife.

Set against the backdrop of the fight for marriage equality in Taiwan, The Teacher captures the friction of living in a country moving towards progressiveness while still grappling with conservative attitudes. A love letter to Taiwan, it explores culture, expectation and the occasional hypocrisy of love.

Note: This film is available only for audiences in India.

Post screening Q&A can be viewed online at KASHISH YouTube Channel, and on KASHISH Facebook page.

Festivals & Honors: • Winner: Best Supporting Actress at Golden Horse Film Festival, Taiwan 2019 • To Ten Chinese Films Festival 2020 • Outfest Los Angeles LGBTQ Film Festival, USA 2020 • Frameline - San Francisco LGBT film festival, USA 2020 • Iris Prize Film Festival 2020

Ming Lang Chen

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MING LANG CHEN is a Taiwanese filmmaker. He earned his MFA at New York University Graduate Film Program. His first feature film Tomorrow Comes Today (2013) premiered at Taipei Film Festival. The script won an award at Taiwan Ministry of Culture Department’s screenplay competition as well as a production grant. He was selected to take part in Lower Manhattan Cultural Counsel’s writer’s residency in 2008. He received the Ang Lee scholarship while he was a student at NYU. The Teacher (2019) is his second feature and was selected for the 2015 Taipei Golden Horse Film Project Promotion.

07

SEPT

5

SHORT FILMS PACKAGE

SUN SMILES & SUNSHINE PROGRAM

01

Total Duration: 79 min

Here is a package of seven mood-lifter short films to bring a smile on your face, and spread sunshine in your heart – what could be a better way to start your day!

THREE TRIPLE A'S Dir: Lexy Anderson 8 min | 2021 | UK | English Nervous-wreck Milly anxiously awaits a Skype-Sex call with her long distant girlfriend, only to be embarrassed that her attempt to ‘spice things up’ has gone horribly wrong.

A LITTLE CONTRACT (Le petit contrat) Dir: Hristo Todorov 20 min | 2020 | France | French Jeanne is feeling low, because like her friends, she has not been able to attract boys. One evening, when she’s looking for a match on dating apps, an unexpected visitor emerges. She gets hold of the opportunity to find the boy of her dreams, but on one condition… A modern-day Cinderella tale with a twist!

DOUBTS (Dudillas)

Dir: Pedro Rudolphi 6 min | 2019 | Spain | Spanish

Mari Carmen visits Rosa, her sex-worker friend, after a weird encounter with a common friend. Mari Carmen needs Rosa’s advice… but that’s not all she needs

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1-1 (The Uneven) Dir: Naures Sager 7 min | 2020 | Sweden | Arabic Ayman's sex date with Jonas gets crashed by his friends Amirah and Samir, which takes a positive turn.

EXTRA FLAVOUR (L'empoté) Dir: Carlos Abascal Peiró 9 min | 2020 | France | No Dialogues Joachim is a very average man in his sixties. But he hides an obsession... or even two… to be precise. He can't help but stare at the men who go to the gym across the street from his house while he devours pickles. When an "easy opening" new jar won't open, his world turns upside down!

ANNA

Dir: Sylvain Certain 5 min | 2020 | France | French Obliged by her mother, Elsa must go to her grandmother to make her a touchy revelation, which will upset her.

SWINGIN' Dir: Shang-Sing Guo 23 min | 2020 | Taiwan | Chinese When sixth-grader boy Qiu is bullied in school for having gay dads, his stepfather Howard, a flamboyant Jazz trumpet player, must confront his own nightmares of childhood bullying, before he can provide his son a feeling of security.

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NARRATIVE FEATURE

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SUN PROGRAM

02

FIREBIRD

Dir: Peeter Rebane 107 min | 2020 | Estonia, UK | English | Narrative Feature | In Competition Based on a true story, Firebird is a touching love story set in the Soviet Air Force during the Cold War. Sergey (Tom Prior), a troubled young private, is counting the days till his military service ends. His life is turned upside down when a daring fighter pilot, Roman (Oleg Zagorodnii) arrives at the base. Driven by curiosity, Sergey and Roman navigate the precarious line between love and friendship as a dangerous love triangle forms between them and Luisa (Diana Pozharskaya), the secretary to the base Commander. Sergey is forced to face his past as Roman’s career is endangered and Luisa struggles to keep her family together. Amid the fears of the all-seeing Soviet regime, they risk their freedom and their lives in the face of an escalating KGB investigation.

Note: This film is available only for audiences in India.

Post screening Q&A can be viewed online at KASHISH YouTube Channel, and on KASHISH Facebook page.

Festivals & Honors: • World Premiere: BFI FLARE, UK 2021 • Frameline San Francisco 2021 • Outfest Los Angeles LGBTQ Film Festival Aug 2021 • aGLIFF/ Prism34 Film Festival Austin, Texas, USA Aug 2021

Peeter Rebane

PEETER REBANE has extensively studied, worked and lived around the world, including the USA and most recently the UK. Peeter produced and directed hundreds of shows in the Baltic region for various artists including Elton John, Bob Dylan, Madonna, Sting, Lady Gaga, Metallica, Queen, and others. In 2013, Peeter was named Entrepreneur of the Year in Estonia. His directing portfolio includes feature films Firebird (2020), Sailing to Freedom (in development), documentaries Tashi Delek! (2015) and Robbie Williams: Fans Journey to Tallinn (BBC Worldwide, 2014) as well as numerous music videos including Moby’s Wait for Me and Pet Shop Boys’ Together. Peeter has been a jury member at various film festivals including Black Nights Film Festival and Cape Town International Film Festival.

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SHORT FILMS PACKAGE

SUN INDIAN MASALA MIX 2 - Encore Screening PROGRAM

Total Duration: 61 min

03

For synopses of the featuring short films please turn to Page 112 113

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CLOSING FILM

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5

SUN

9.00PM

UNSOUND Dir: Ian Watson

88 min | 2020 | Australia | English, Auslan | Narrative Feature When gigging guitarist, Noah (Reece Noi), finds himself disillusioned and transient, he quits the band of his 90’s pop icon mentor, returns to his mother’s home in Sydney.

Clashing with his mother over old wounds, Noah seeks solace elsewhere, and soon finds himself swept up in the vibrant, passionate life of a young transman, Finn (Yiana Pandelis), a proud, Auslan- only speaker who works and runs a local center and nightclub for his deaf community. Together, the pair traverse new ground, sharing their languages - Noah’s music and Finn’s signs – with one another. But as the two become closer, and with no shared language to fall back on, they only risk hurting each other, as they learn to be true to themselves.

Note: This film is available only for audiences in India.

Post screening Q&A can be viewed online at KASHISH YouTube Channel, and on KASHISH Facebook page.

Festivals & Honors: • Winner: Best Australian Feature Film, Melbourne Queer Film Festival 2020 • Australian Academy of Cinema & Television Arts (AACTA) Awards 2020 • SCHLiNGEL International Film Festival for Children & Young Audience 2020 • CinefestOZ Film Festival 2020 • Warsaw International Film Festival 2020 • Merlinka Film Festival 2020

Ian Watson

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IAN WATSON has been directing for over 30 years. In television Ian has directed over 200 hours of drama, with credits that include, the multi award winning and Emmy nominated, Love My Way, Carla Cametti P.D a six part miniseries for SBS, Wicked Love: The Maria Korp Story, the Emmy nominated Dance Academy, Janet King and Anzac Girls for the ABC and most recently House Husbands and Doctor Doctor for Channel 9. He was the inaugural winner of the Australian Directors Guild (ADG) Award for best direction in a television miniseries for his work on the Australian/UK production Tripping Over. He subsequently got nominated again in the miniseries category in 2009, 2013, and in 2015.

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Allied Events at KASHISH 2021 These panels and workshops are part of the KASHISH 2021 program and are available free to watch on our social media handles @kashishfilmfest on Facebook and Instagram, and on our YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/KASHISHfilmfest These programs will be live-streamed at the below mentioned date and time.

OPENING CEREMONY

6:00 PM

The grand Opening Ceremony of KASHISH 2021 hosted by the glamorous RENIL ABRAHAM, will feature amazing performances by MX. TAYANO (A-capella), SMITIN BHOSALE (dance) JOHN OINAM & SMRUTI JALPUR (music) and SOHINI ROYCHOWDHURY choreographed dance, performed by HARIKAMAL MAZUMDAR & PRABIR KAYAL.

AUG

TEACH THEM YOUNG! - Qualitative Queer Narratives emerging from Indian Film Schools

AUG

19 THU

23

MON

6:00 PM

The opening ceremony also features talks by the KASHISH festival & preview teams, KASHISH Advisory Board Members, KASHISH Partners, and a beautiful video by community members titled ‘Unlock With Pride’.

With their students' films getting noticed and winning awards at film festivals, the film & media schools in India can easily be credited for nurturing and honing budding filmmakers. Not only do these student films have an engaging narrative but they are truly delightful qualitative cinema. Lately with the focus being shifted to LGBTQ+ narratives, how are the film schools encouraging these young filmmakers to come up with heart-warming, yet politically correct stories, without ruffling any feathers?

Speakers: ANUPAM BARVE, FTII (Pune), MADHAVI TANGELLA, SRFTI (Kolkata), NIRMITA GUPTA, SCM Sophia (Mumbai), RAHUL PURI, Whistling Woods International (Mumbai) & VIVECK VASWANI, Pearl Academy (Mumbai) Moderator: BHAGIRATHI RAMAN, curator & outreach consultant (Goa/Mumbai)

The panel is supported by Whistling Woods International

AUG

23

MON

8:00 PM

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Understanding Inclusivity in the Queer Community A virtual workshop by Zinedabaad Collective

Queerness is an umbrella that is home to a rainbowed plethora of identities.

While queerness binds us, it does not homogenize us. Join Zinedabaad Collective and KASHISH MIQFF in this reflective arts-based session to think about the diversity of our lived experiences. How can we make queer spaces where everyone feels welcome? How can we unlock—truly unlock, regardless of gender, caste, religion and ability—with pride?

This workshop will be held on Zoom followed by an open call for submissions for a digital anthology zine around the same topic. KASHISH participants and viewers will be encouraged to send in their thoughts on inclusivity and the queer community in prose, narrative writing, poetry, traditional and digital art, photography, etc.

AUG

24 TUE

6:00 PM

BOOKS TO SCREEN – Lost & Found in Translation!

It is always exciting when a novel that you have read and imagined comes out as a film / web series and you watch it on the screen, and tally your imagination with what is portrayed. Can screen adaptations of LGBTQ+ novels/ stories do justice to them, or is something lost in translation? What is the approach taken by screenwriters and directors to adapt books to screen, what do they keep and what do they leave out, and how do they reimagine? We speak to novelists, screenwriters and filmmakers to understand this beautiful experience of transformation.

Speakers: JONAS GARDELL, novelist, playwright, screenwriter, director and comedian (Sweden), LIVING SMILE VIDYA, actor, author and trans activist (Chennai), MAHESH DATTANI, playwright & filmmaker (Mumbai) and MIRA NAIR, filmmaker (Kampala/New York) Moderator: RAGA D'SILVA, author & motivational speaker (London)

The panel is supported by Consulate General of Sweden

AUG

25

WED

6:00 PM

UNLOCKING ACCEPTANCE WITH SIBLINGS If families form the core of our being, siblings contribute to the most fond memories and deep influences of our growing up years. They are the lens through which we see our childhood. Siblings are our partners and rivals, our first friends and our first enemies. If a LGBTQIA+ sibling comes out to their heterosexual sibling, does acceptance follow automatically or is there a long-drawn-out hesitation between them? For LGBTQIA+ persons how important is the acceptance and support from their heterosexual siblings? KASHISH 2021 tries to find out the answers for such crucial and some cool questions by chit-chatting with awesome LGBTQIA+ persons and their equally wonderful non-queer siblings.

Speakers: NISHTHA NISHANT and PARITOSH GOSAVI (Mumbai), SHRUTA RAWAT and SHLOKA MENGLE (Mumbai), SONAL GIANI and RUPA GIANI (Bangalore), VIVEK RAJ ANAND, BHARAT ANAND and REKHA SHAH (Mumbai) Moderator: SHRUTA RAWAT Research Manager (Mumbai)

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AUG

27 FRI

6:00 PM

LGBTQ FILM FESTIVALS – The Importance of Community Building Film Festivals, especially the niche ones like LGBTQ film festivals, have always been more than platforms for exhibition of films, they have been spaces for community building, where LGBTQIA+ persons can have a safe-space to express their identity and also possibly intermingle with the non-LGBTQ society for exchange of views. India, despite the legal barrier till recently and social stigmatization, has a rich history of LGBTQIA+ film festivals that have paved the way of mainstreaming queer issues. But how are these festivals coping with the current pandemic and lockdowns, are they able to navigate to a virtual world and still continue their mission of community building. KASHISH is proud to bring together festival organizers of LGBTQIA+ film festivals from Canada, Pakistan / Denmark and India.

Speakers: ANINDYA HAJRA, Dialogues Film Festival (Kolkata), KATHERINE SETZER, Image+Nation Film Festival (Montreal), PRIYA BABU, Trans Film Festival & Awards (Madurai) & SAADAT MUNIR, Aks International Minorities Festival Film (Pakistan / Copenhagen) Moderator: ANDREA KUHN, Nuremberg International Human Rights Film Festival (Germany)

This panel is Supported by Bureau du Québec à Mumbai

AUG

30

MON

6:00 PM

RELIGIOUSLY QUEER Intersection of religion and sexuality has always been an intriguing subject where most people believe that if you are religious you cannot be queer. There have also been myths and mythology about same-sex loving persons being considered sinners or deviants. But all that has changed in most countries and LGBTQ persons are now able to reconcile their religion and sexuality seamlessly and live a happy and fulfilled life. How do filmmakers whose films we are screening at KASHISH 2021, make films about religion and sexuality navigate this challenging terrain? Do they bring their sexuality into play when focusing on the narrative? Filmmakers from India, Israel and India speak about their own films and the space in which they find themselves.

Speakers: FAWZIA MIRZA, dir: Noor & Lyla (Canada / USA); RABI VERDI, dir: Marry Me However (Israel); RAMAKAUSHALYAN RAMAKRISHNAN, dir: Shivanum-Mohiniyum (India) & SUKHDEEP SINGH, dir: Sab Rab De Bande (India) Moderator: MOHAMMED SHAIK HUSSAIN ALI, author & activist (USA)

This panel is Supported by Bureau du Québec à Mumbai

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AUG

31 TUE

6:00 PM

MARRIAGE EQUALITY – What is the Way Forward Post the decriminalization of homosexuality in India in 2018, the LGBTQIA+ community is waiting for the next big step that will recognize not only their identities but also their partnerships. Same-Sex marriage rights are a hot topic being discussed right now in the courtrooms, in the media, on the news channels and also among members of the LGBTQIA+ community. What can India take from countries that legalized same-sex partnerships way back, for example, from Belgium which became the second country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage, after the Netherlands in 2003! Community members, couples from India and Belgium engage in a free-flowing discussion not only about laws and policies, but basic human emotions that are the bedrock of all relationships.

Speakers: DAVID PATERNOTTE, author & speaker (Belgium), PETER STRIJDONK & STIJN DEKLERCK, gay couple (Belgium/Netherlands), MANVENDRA SINGH GOHIL, first openly gay prince & activist (India), PARAG MEHTA & VAIBHAV JAIN, gay couple & petitioners for same-sex marriage rights in Delhi High Court (New York) & VIHAAN PEETHAMBAR & RAJASHREE RAJU, queer couple (Bangalore) Moderator: SURESH RAMDAS, gay activist (Bangalore) This panel is Supported by Consulate General of the Kingdom of Belgium in Mumbai

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ON WHOSE SHOULDERS WE STAND - Remembering Theirstories, Herstories

WED

While the Indian LGBTQIA+ movement has taken rapid strides in the past decade, with the decriminalization of homosexuality, and passing of the Transgender protection bill, it has taken years, and even decades, of hard work to arrive at where we are today. Similarly everywhere across the world - activists, advocates and allies have rallied behind the movement, propelling it forward. There have been several torchbearers who have pioneered the movement. But does today’s millennial generation, zipping through social media and consuming small bytes of information, remember and recognize the decades of hardwork that has gone to bring forth the freedom they enjoy today. This panel discussion brings together senior LGBTQ+ activists from India and Canada to discuss how important it is to preserve Herstories and Histories.

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and Histories

Speakers: ASHOK ROW KAVI, journalist & activist (Mumbai), GOPI SHANKAR, intersex activist (Madurai), RUTH VANITA, author (Montana) Moderator: KARIM LADAK, author & activist (Toronto) This panel is Supported by Consulate General of Canada

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CORPORATE ROUNDTABLE – Being inclusive about the LGBTQ+ community A corporate roundtable with some of the companies that are supporting KASHISH 2021, where each of the company representative will be able to make a presentation of 3 minutes about their companies latest advances in the D&I sector, with a specific focus on the work done by them for the LGBTQIA+ community – be it within their companies, or externally with their support to events. There will be a moderated discussion after the presentation, bringing out what has been done, and what are the challenges that lie ahead.

Speakers: AVRIL MIRANDA FERNANDES, Executive Director, Morgan Stanley; NUPUR BEDI HR Director, General Mills, GIC and PRACHI RASTOGI, Diversity & Inclusion Leader, IBM Asia Pacific Moderator: SRIDHAR RANGAYAN, Festival Director, KASHISH MIQFF This panel is Supported by Morgan Stanley

SEP

CLOSING & AWARDS CEREMONY

SUN

The grand Closing Ceremony of KASHISH 2021 hosted by the indomitable RJ ROHINI RAMNATHAN, will feature amazing performances and announcement by the 3 jury panels, of the winners in each of the 10 competition categories.

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6:00 PM

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KASHISH 2021 FESTIVAL TEAM Festival Director SRIDHAR RANGAYAN

Director of Programming SAAGAR GUPTA

Director of Communication SHIBU THOMAS

Director of Outreach ROHINI RAMNATHAN

Director of Finances CHANDRESH MEHTA

Jury & Panel Coordinator ABHRA DAS

Opening & Closing Coodinator AARON D'SOUZA

Digital Marketing DIGITAL FIX

Social Media Coordinator SUMIT PAWAR

LBT+ Consultant ADITI AGARWAL

Catalog Design YOGESH JAHAGIRDAR

Catalog Program Notes SAAGAR GUPTA

Preview Team Members ABHAY KULKARNI, ABHRA DAS, BHAGIRATHI RAMAN, GUELCIN, MURALI RAMAN, NAYAN TENDULKAR, NISHTHA NISHANT, OMESH MASAND, PRIYADARSHINI OHOL, URMI JADHAV Filmmaker Q&A Hosts ABHAY KULKARNI, ABHRA DAS, ABHINA AHER, ADITYA ADVANI, ANISHA SHARMA, BHAGIRATHI RAMAN, DHAMINI RATNAM, KAIZAAD KOTWAL, MOHAMMED SHAIK HUSSAIN ALI, MURALI RAMAN, NISHTHA NISHANT, PRIYA KRISHNASWAMY, PUNITA GUPTA, RAGA D'SILVA, SAAGAR GUPTA, SACHIN JAIN, SHAMAN GUPTA, SHANKHAJEET DE, SHARIF RANGNEKAR, SIMRAN SHEIKH, SONAL GIANI, SRIDHAR RANGAYAN, VIHAAN PEETHAMBAR Interpreters MARIA EKSTRAND, ROBERTO F.CANUTO, SACHIN JAIN

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Festival Trailer AKSHAY JAKHOTIYA Theme Animation ALL IN MOTION Website Designer IDIGITIZE Video Editors AKSHAY JAKHOTIYA, MOHOSIN SHAIKH, PRIYANKA ARORA and POWER DV Volunteers AARON CARNELIA, DAVID JOHN, GLENDA DSILVA, NAUSHEEN, PARIKSHIT SETHE, SAUMYA BHURE, SHEDON HENRIQUES, SUMI LAL, SWAPNIL RAISINGH

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FRIENDS OF KASHISH 2021 Thanks to each one of the below contributors to our crowdfunding campaign.

All of you have made this festival possible with your support.

Animesh Bahadur RAINBOW STAR Anonymous RAINBOW STAR Mohammed Shaik Hussain Ali RAINBOW STAR Working With Pride PROGRAM SPONSOR Mohamed Khaki FAMILY Sanoop Chandrababu FAMILY Andrea Kuhn FAMILY Anjum Rajabali FAMILY Aruna Desai FAMILY Devesh Khatu FAMILY D-J Haanraadts FAMILY Maulik Thakkar FAMILY Omesh Masand FAMILY Rohini Ramnathan FAMILY Surekha Kanse FAMILY Yusuf Botawala FAMILY Anonymous FRIEND Chitra Palekar FRIEND Ivan John FRIEND Lalit Sharma FRIEND Neelima Lavana FRIEND Bhavesh Katira SUPPORTER Deepak Kolnad SUPPORTER Kyle Schirmann SUPPORTER Manish SUPPORTER Raoul D Souza SUPPORTER Sanket Sveronic SUPPORTER

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KASHISH 2021 PARTNERS

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FILMS INDEX Total number of Programmed Films: 221 Films Total number of Participating Countries: 53 Countries NARRATIVE FEATURES A Perfectly Normal Family Advent Of Mary Another Self Boy Meets Boy Breaking Fast Brihonnola Cicada Firebird Forgotten Roads The Lawyer Love, Spells And All That The Man With The Answers No Hard Feelings Nowhere Red Yellow Pink A Skeleton In The Closet The Teacher (El Maestro) THE TEACHER (Wo De Ling Hun Shi Ai Zuo De) Unsound Versus Walk With Me DOCUMENTARY FEATURES A Worm In The Heart Admitted Ahead Of The Curve All Together Always Amber Canela Cured I Am Here - We Are Here Together Marry Me However Mohini - Men In Sarees Once A Fury

116 95 70 142 61 48 132 157 96 107 151 50 39 84 72 106 117 154 159 141 60

44 147 57 115 91 66 69 47 101 105 125

Pride & Protest Prince Of Dreams Rebel Dykes Sex, Sin & 69 Transition And Happiness Transkids Well Rounded DOCUMENTARY SHORTS About Queens And Other Colors Against The Wind All Monsters Are Human Brazil’s Forbidden Shirt Crossings Don’t Be A Dick!

Fabulous Farmer Freedom From Me To We Getting Married Grace I Am I Do Not Belong In This Body In A Strange Room Letter To My Mother Live, Dance, Pose Making Samantha Motta Naomi Replansky At 100 Nothing But A Human Out Loud Personaje Personaje Queer Fear Sorry We Missed You Take Me To Prom Tales Of Another Radha

140 80 94 137 77 112 128

120 89 65 126 120 55 90 90 121 89 108 89 64 81 90 63 127 55 42 62 108 121 135 43 42 76

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The Drag Manifesto The Gaytriarchy And Why We Need Pride The Many Pink Triangles The Outcasted The Silent B Towards Hope Tracing Utopia Visible We’re All God’s Creation ANIMATION SHORTS Kapaemahu Mates More Than 2 Nude Triumphant The Sappho Project: Fragment 147 Shoshi Ben-Abraham: Good Witch (Usually) Unwanted Gift INDIAN NARRATIVE SHORTS Are We There Yet? Begum Parvathi Closets Dawn The First Wedding Inside Keep Punching The Lonely Prince Love Knows No Gender Muhurtora - Bouquet Of Moments My Mother’s Girlfriend Paul 10 Shikhandi Shivanum Mohiniyum Vaidya

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120 75 42 49 119 62 109 119 76

124 122 122 124 123 122 123

149 148 149 113 58 148 150 149 58 59 114 113 146 58 114

INTERNATIONAL NARRATIVE SHORTS 1-1 (The Uneven) 62-84, I Didn’t Copy That, HQ A Bronx Story A Little Contract A Pound Of Flesh The Act Ãh Alexa, Xander And The Universe Ali’s Secret And Just Two More And We Collide Anna April´s Last Memories Be Reborn Beat 97 Beauty Boys Beer! Beer!

Bodies Bridesmaid Cheap Thrills Complicated The Dance Of Starling The Day Began Yesterday Dead Model, Life Model Dearly Distress Doubts Drifting Eat The Rainbow Eggshells Elagabalus Escaping The Fragile Planet Extra Flavour Fabiu Face The Fairy Tale Finding Myself First Carnival

156 64 87 155 138 134 51 79 130 110 68 156 133 126 136 153 67 129 99 56 53 41 143 138 92 45 155 146 127 51 100 68 156 133 51 53 98 78

Germination Girls Shouldn’t Walk Alone At Night God’s Daughter Dances Guardian Halwa Hand Off Hierarchy Hot Chips I Don’t Know I’ll End Up In Prison Iftah It’ll Be Over Soon It’s Just In My Head Jesse James Julka And Julie Just A Girl The Last Romantics Of The World Leo & Alex In The Middle Of The 21st Century Lift Off Lila Limits Love X Bites Madonna F64.0 Mano Santa Memento Mori Mermaid The Name Of The Son The Nest Night Drive Noontime Drama Noor & Lyla Not That Kind Of Guy Nothing To See Here The Odyssey Offline On A Path On My Way One-Way Glass Only Human

135 93 139 111 139 79 97 45 98 83 102 136 104 104 100 110 87 92 41 87 85 136 52 78 82 52 79 45 129 152 131 111 82 46 85 145 103 153 88

Other Outside The Aquarium Pa’lante Parched Return Pee Sitting Down Personals The PhD Pile Of Salt Pink & Blue Pink Barong Player Polter Polygraph Queer Nation Return To Sender River Roadkill Rocky The Rooftop Sand Land Save Twilight Screenshots For A Goodbye The Silence Of The River The Silence That You Do Snake So Long, Paris!

Sole Mio Solstice Sparks Stray Dogs Come Out At Night Such Farewells The Suit Weareth The Man Swingin’ The Tears’ Thing Three Triple A’s Ticking Boxes Today Tone Of The City Two Colours Of Jahan Undercurrent Unliveable

97 73 97 52 103 56 82 54 41 78 126 86 99 83 71 103 130 138 54 40 93 130 134 135 40 152 153 46 79 134 92 85 156 110 155 55 145 67 75 67 86

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The Unsure Masseur Veranico Vincent Before Noon Virtual Guard The Wash (In Love) What If? What We Don’t Tell

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111 104 152 93 93 40 83