The 7th Kashish Mumbai International Film Festival will be conducted from May 25 to 29. Considered to be one of the biggest LGBT film festivals in South Asia, it will be spread across three different locations in the city — Liberty Theatre, Alliance Francaise de Bombay and Max Mueller Bhavan.
Themed Shades of Love, the five-day event will screen a total of 182 films from 53 countries. From India, a total of 27 films will be screened in as many as seven languages.
"The festival will have 32 world premiers and 27 international premiers," said Shridhar Rangayan, festival director. This year's international jury will comprise national award winner Rajeshwari Sachdeva, television star Manav Gohil, known film-maker Parvathi Balagopalan, Emmy award winning art director Kaisaaz Kotwal and LGBT activist and film maker Andrea Kuhn.
"I think it is an act of daring (to have a film festival) when the in the country being LGBT is illegal. It is a kind of political rebellion," said Kotwal during the press conference. He added that on one hand the country has identified the third gender but the struggle to decriminalise same sex sexual activity is still going on.
Other jury members said that the festival will give good perspective and tell people more about the lives of LGBT. It will also screen movies from countries where being a member of LGBT community could end up having harsh punishments, even death penalty.
"People are getting to know about LGBT community and last year three movies won awards that addressed the issue. This year two national award winning movies will be shown from India besides several others that have won awards," said Rangayan.
"In India, it is important that people who are public figures should come out and talk about being from the LGBT community. In the US that is how the movement got a push," said Kotwal.
