Opening & Closing Films
The Opening and Closing Films are bookends to the 4 ½ days of the festival and usually correlate to the theme of the festival. This year the theme is ‘Flights For Freedom’ and the opening film about a transwoman’s empowering journey is an apt fit to the theme, more so because the lead role is played a real-life transwoman. The closing film is satirical take on Russia, told from the viewpoint of a gay youth who migrated alongwith his mother from Russia to USA.
Opening Film
ANTHARAM (Seperation)
Dir: Abhijith Pulparambath
71 min / 2021 / Narrative Feature / India / Malayalam, Tamil
After living with her grandparents, young Sneha is relocating to live with her father Hareendran and her step-mom Anjali, a trans woman, who extends her love and care for Sneha. Sneha understands more about Anjali and becomes in awe of the life the latter has been leading. The film focus on the plight of a trans woman who had to live as a wife of an ordinary man. ‘Antharam’ deals with the inner conflicts, warmth, trauma and joyous moments in the lives of a trans woman, a woman and a man living under the same roof.
Closing Film
POTATO DREAMS OF AMERICA
Dir: Wes Hurley
95 min / 2021 / Narrative Feature / USA
Wes Hurley’s autobiographical dark comedy about a gay boy growing up in the collapsing USSR, his courageous mail-order bride mother and their adventurous escape to America. Full of unexpected twists, the film is an immigrant’s take on the American Dream and the power of cinema, proving that life is often stranger than fiction.
