KASHISH 2011 – HIGhlights

How do you top `Bigger, Bolder and Queerer’ – that was KASHISH 2011’s tagline. This year, the festival does it by going a step ahead and promising something `For Everyone’.

Highlights of this year’s festival:

* 120 films from 30 countries.

* KASHISH screens a record number of feature films – 23 features. These feature, both narrative and documentaries, cover the entire gamut of queer experiences – from rom coms to musicals to engaging dramas to hard hitting real life stories.

* One of the biggest surprises of this year’s KASHISH is the Indian Focus of Regional Films with four queer feature films from India in four languages – Marathi, Punjabi, Tamil/Kannada and Hindi -all dealing with Hijra and transgender characters, but from totally different perspectives. While one is a blockbuster comedy (Family Khusreyan Di), the other is a dance drama (Queens! Destiny of Dance). There are two films (Aamhi Ka Teesre, Let The Butterflies Fly) that deal with ground realities that transgenders face in society and with their families.

* Filmmaker in focus is Rob Williams, who will be present at the festival as a special guest. KASHISH 2012 showcases his three features, from his debut feature Long Term Relationship to his later productions, Make The Yuletide Gay and Role/ Play. A short film written by him – Regrets, is also screening in the short film package, Crossed Paths.

* Loads of shorts packages that are exciting, intriguing and evocative. While the popular shorts packages like Girl Shorts (a mix of lesbian themed shorts), Rainbow Warriors (about queer people who have made a difference), Indian Masala Mix (exciting shorts by young Indian filmmakers) and Red Ribbon package (films on HIV/AIDS) return, there are several new packages like Urban Longings (about meetings and departings in a city), Unfair Games (homophobia in sports), Family Ties (about queer person and their families), We The Queers (celebrating queer persons who have made a difference), Hooked On You (rom-coms), Crossed Paths (dark short films) and Best of Iris (award winning short films from our partner festival Iris Prize, UK).

* An interesting entry is a package of animation shorts titled QToons that provides a guffaw, a sigh, a giggle and many laughs. Making this year exciting and intriguing are shorts that feature even zombies, werebears and a gay superhero.

* KASHISH this year has a French date. This year the Country Focus is France. The festival will screen two highly acclaimed French Features Gigola directed by Laure Charpentier and Le Fil directed by Mehdi Ben Attia. The Country Focus also includes a short film package: FRENCH RENDEZVOUS with six short films portraying Contemporary French Queer Cinema.

* Other events include panel discussions, book readings, open house with filmmakers – apart from film screenings to cater to a wider audience.