Kashish Film Festival 2022 To Kick Start With Film 'Antharam'; Read More Here

Kashish 2022, an LGBTQ+ film festival has kicked off;  The Kashish Mumbai International Queer Film Festival will be held in Mumbai from June 1 to June 5. During the film festival, more than 194 films from 53 countries will be screened within 5 days. A total of 31 films being screened are from India. The films being screened include documentaries, short films, and narrative feature films.

The Kashish Mumbai International Queer Film Festival is South Asia’s largest LGBTQIA+ film festival and the first queer film festival to be held at a mainstream theatre.

Filmmaker, writer and activist Sridhar Rangayan—known for his films on the queer community like The Pink Mirror, Purple Skies, 68 Days, Project Bolo, and Yours Emotionally—is the Festival director.

The Kashish 2022 will open with the Indian film Antharam, which is about a transwoman and her journey of acceptance. Antharam stars transgender actor Neha. It will be followed by Badhaai Do, starring Rajkumar Rao and Bhumi Pednekar on June 2. On June 4, Sheer Qorma directed by Faraz Arif Ansari and starring Swara Bhaskar, Shabana Azmi, and Divya Dutt will be screened.

Badhaai Do is this year’s Special Feature and Ansari’s Sheer Qorma is the Indian Narrative Centrepiece film. The screening will be followed by a panel discussion ‘Mainstreaming Lesbian and Non-Binary Identities”.

SheThePeople spoke to the director of Sheer Qorma, Faraz Arif Ansari about their film’s first debut Indian debut with the cast and crew in attendance. Ansari spoke about how they started as an audience member of Kashish and were now the director of the Centrepiece Film. They said, “For a film that was born, conceived and filmed in Mumbai and to finally screen it at Liberty Cinema where I grew up watching films, I am so looking forward to it!”