Short Films Package

Total Duration: 87 min

Presented here are four short films made by film & media school students, competing for the Best Student Short Award with a cash prize of Rs. 25,000 supported by Whistling Woods International, and a KASHISH Golden Butterfly Trophy.

Dir: David Amberg

7 min | 2022 | USA | English | Asian Premiere

Two years after a gaybashing, Michael and Alex are still feeling the aftershocks in their relationship. Things continue to get complicated, as Michael’s dissociations start becoming reality.

Media School: University of Southern California, USA

SOFT SIGN* (סימן רכות)

Dir: Victoria Uchitel

24 min | 2022 | Israel | Hebrew | International Premiere

Natalie and her friend Amir, a director, are engaged in art and identity. As they work on a TV report about the upcoming '96 elections, two young immigrants offer new insight as possibilities arise.

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

*Filmmaker in Attendance

GOODBYE AGAIN

Dir: Dwaipayan Mazumder

(ধুলো�োয় রইলো�ো ঢ ো ক ো) Liberty

The film explores several layers of a complex relationship between two friends who happens to coincidentally meet in a party after a long separation.

Media School: ILead - Dept. of Media & Journalism, India

ROOTED

Dir: Yi-wei Wu

A teenager is saved by a lifeguard due to a misunderstanding of nearly drowning, which subsequently brings to light long-restrained desires in his heart. As a result, he hopes for a different ending to his summer vacation.

Media School: Shih Hsin University, Taiwan

107 min| 2022 | South Africa | English | Narrative Feature | Asian Premiere

When modest tailor and single Indian dad, Varun, is called to break his long-lost white ex-girlfriend, Monica, out of a rehab clinic across the country, he and their transgender son, River (Trans* actor & writer, Gabe Gabriel), take a road trip across South Africa to rescue her. Tensions are high as the dysfunctional new family unit adjusts on their way back home where River is set to compete with his best friend, Ollie (black, queer, non-binary actor Cleo Wesley), in a once-in-a-lifetime drag competition that could win him his longawaited gender-affirming surgery, so long as no con artists from Varun and Monica’s wild past with their old friend and mafia man Stan get in their way.

Festivals & Honors:

• World Premiere - Inside Out Film Festival, 2023

Ian Gabriel was the first director of colour to open an independent, director owned film production company in South Africa. His debut feature Forgiveness won the Best South African Film Award and the Best African Film Award, and Ian was a recipient of the Human Rights Award at the 57th Locarno International Film. His feature project Four Corners was the South African Official Submission for Best Foreign Language Film at the 86th Academy Awards, and won numerous awards including winning Golden Horn Awards at the 2015 SAFTA Awards. Ian has collaborated with celebrity talents as diverse as human rights icon and activist Nelson Mandela and Nobel Peace Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, celebrities such as Charlize Theron and Cristiano Ronaldo. Ian’s son Gabe Gabriel is the writer and lead actor of the film Runs in the Family.

Dir: Kamya N

53 min | India | 2022 |

Hindi, Marathi |

Featurette |

Mumbai Premiere

On a slow, hot day during Mumbai's first COVID-19 lockdown, 21-year-old Manju sets out to apologize to her best friend and the love of her life, Lailaa. She has to re-affirm their love — and avoid a conversation with her formidable mother, who's discovered the truth about the two young women, at all costs.

*Cast & Crew in Attendance Film program will be followed by Q&A.

Preceded By

KISS *

Dir: Varun Grover

17 min | 2022 | India | Hindi |

Narrative Short

At a preview theatre, a young filmmaker waits in the hope of getting his new sci-fi drama certified with 'no cuts' by the conservative men of the Indian Censor Board. As the filmmaker and board members argue over the length of a kissing scene in the film, the laws of physics disintegrate around them.

*Cast & Crew in Attendance Film program will be followed by Q&A.

88 min | 2022 | India | Hindi | Narrative Feature | Mumbai Premiere

Laila and Roshni (played by Trans* actors Manisha Soni and Muskaan) are looking for a house after they are evicted from the place they rented. It soon becomes evident that their search for a home is also their ongoing search for a place in this society that wants to keep them away in a section that cannot be the center. They have a friend in Sharukh, but many of their other interactions don’t turn out as expected. Laila is torn between being true to herself and preserving links with the family she was born into. Meanwhile, Roshni treads a fine line between concealing her identity and living the life that she wants but it is not without its dangers. As the search for a home continues, it transcends physical spaces and biological bonds. New friendships blossom, and help comes from unexpected quarters.

*Cast & Crew in Attendance. Film program will be followed by Q&A.

Festivals & Honors:

• World Premiere - 35th Tokyo International Film Festival, Japan

• 27th International Film Festival of Kerala, Trivandrum, India

• Queer Screen's 30th Mardi Gras Film Festival, Sydney, Australia

• 37th BFI Flare London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival, United Kingdom

• 13th Indian Film Festival of Bhubaneswar, India 2023

• Audience Award Winner– SXSW Film & TV Festival, Austin, Texas, USA, 2023

Ektara Collective is a film making collective based in Bhopal, India; comprises of trained and untrained people from diverse backgrounds and identities who come together and collaborate to make independent cinema that is located in our realities and experiences. There earlier films have been Chanda Ke Joote (2011), Jaadui Machchhi (2013), Turup (2017) and Hotel Raahgir (2020).