The only Indian festival to be featured in MovieMaker Magazine's annual coolest film festivals from around the world.
Kashish Mumbai International Queer Film Festival has been voted among MovieMaker Magazine’s 2013 top five coolest LGBT film festivals in the world.
Kashish, which debuted in 2010, is South-Asia’s biggest and India’s only mainstream LGBT film festival. The magazine said, “Kashish means attraction or allurement in Urdu — a word we’d like to incorporate into our vocabulary.”
MovieMaker, which has been publishing its annual list of coolest film festivals from around the world every year, decided to add niche categories, such as Documentary and Horror/Sci-Fi Festivals, Short Film and Comedy Festivals and Environmental/Social Cause/Women’s Film Festivals, LGBT and Ethnic/National Film Festivals, this year and asked its readers to nominate and vote for what they see as the coolest.
The definition of coolest was seen as a combination of quality cinema, great parties, alternative venues, shoestring budget, hyper-indie films, the opportunity to gawk at celebrities and connect with fellow filmmakers — a mix that they might not get to see anywhere else. Over four months, they received more than 15,000 votes and used a specialised visual survey platform to finalise the audience’s favourite winners.
Kashish was the only Indian film festival to be featured in the list.
Festival director Sridhar Rangayan is ecstatic. “I can’t even say it is a dream come true because we never even dreamt of something like this! When we started Kashish, we just wanted to provide a platform where everyone could watch international quality gay and lesbian films without shame or fear in a mainstream space. We never ever thought our festival would grow so big in a mere four years.”
Calling this a fruit of all the hard work of the organising team and volunteers and the enthusiasm and support of the audiences, he averred, “Kashish not only celebrates good cinema, but highlights hopes, desires, struggles and victories of the LGBT community around the world. The festival is our own way of raising the rainbow flag high above proudly.”
Kashish director of programming Saagar Gupta told dna, “We’re truly humbled and happy that our efforts have been acknowledged and appreciated on a global platform. This honour will surely boost our morale. I want to thank partners, supporters and the Indian queer community whose synergy has taken the festival to these heights, which we hope will continue in the coming years.”
The fifth edition of Kashish is scheduled for May 21-25, 2014. Film submissions have already opened and the festival hopes to bring a larger programme of qualitative LGBT-themed films. This first and only Indian LGBT film festival is the only one to get clearance from the ministry of information and broadcasting.
The past four successful editions of the festival, which has screened around 110 to 132 films from 25 to 40 countries every year, have enjoyed the support of Bollywood celebrities, filmmakers, actors and writers, as well as international filmmakers and film festivals.
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