Bangalore film festival: Space for the Queer

Transcending genders, questioning the socially accepted

sexual orientation and creating an engaging space for dialogue is what Bangalore Queer Film Festival is all about. For the fifth time in a row on Friday this fest opened to the public at Alliance Francaise with 55 films from 20 countries.

Vinay Chandran, Festival Director said, “We need more spaces like

this film fest, it will help more queer people (LGBT) come out and be comfortable  about who they are.”

On the opening night they screened Ira Sach’s ‘Keep the Lights on’, an emotionally charged story of love, life and art in New York. Other full-length features in this year’s line-up include Shoaib Mansoor’s ‘Bol’, which comes from Pakistan to tell us the story of a transgendered protagonist, Zainab, as she awaits her death sentence and Malayalam music director M G Sreekumar’s debut production, ‘Ardhanaari’.

The fest has seven full-length feature films, 18 short fiction films, six short films, six experimental films and 18 documentaries which will be played between Friday and Sunday. Besides the films they also have a photo exhibition by Indu Anthony and also on display were the line drawings by Living Smile Vidya.