VISION
FESTIVAL VISION
KASHISH Pride Film Festival (earlier known as KASHISH Mumbai International Queer Film Festival) is an attempt to encourage greater visibility of Indian and International queer cinema among both queer and mainstream audiences as a means to foster better understanding of queer thoughts, desires and expressions.
Since its debut in 2010, KASHISH has emerged as South Asia’s and India’s biggest LGBTQIA+ film festival. We are committed to bring the best of international and Indian queer cinema to Mumbai and continue mainstreaming of queer issues and their lives.
Apart from exhibiting LGBTQIA+ films during its annual festival, KASHISH also has been instrumental in taking Indian LGBTQIA+ films across the world, offering these films distribution, and also producing sensitive LGBTQIA+ content through film grants.
KASHISH believes that art and films are powerful mediums to bring about social change and the festival uses the reach and spread that KASHISH has already established as one of Mumbai’s important film festivals to rally public opinion towards equality and dignity for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual and non-binary persons. KASHISH uses local, national and international platforms to advocate and sensitize the larger public about LGBTQIA+ issues.
KASHISH strongly believes in bringing together the diversity of the LGBTQIA+ experiences through films and discussions, and enable an equitable society for every LGBTQIA+ individual to live with dignity.
FESTIVAL BACKGROUND
Voted as one of the Top 5 LGBTQIA+ Film Festivals in the world, KASHISH Pride Film Festival is South Asia’s biggest queer film Festival and the first LGBTQIA+ film festival in India to be held in a mainstream theatre.
Founded in 2010 and held every year for the past seven years the festival has grown from strength to strength. KASHISH attracts close to 8500 footfalls every year over its five day festival. It is the first Indian LGBTQIA+ festival to be held with the approval of the Information & Broadcasting ministry, Government of India.
The festival also attracts topline Bollywood celebrities, filmmakers, critics and academicians from India as well as many international guests from across the world.
It receives more than hundred press features every year from the Indian press as well as international press, including the New York Times.
KASHISH since 2010 to 2016 was organized by Solaris Pictures and co-organized by The Humsafar Trust. Since 2017, KASHISH is organized by KASHISH Arts Foundation, in association with Solaris Pictures.
FESTIVAL NAME
KASHISH which means ‘attraction or allurement’ in Urdu does not have a gender or sexuality construct and is used to denote a deep attraction for anything – be it a person, an object or an idea.
Pride truly reflects the diversity of LGBTQIA+ identities and also Allies and reimagines the festival as an integrated space for everyone to be there with Pride.
Film Festival, that’s what KASHISH is all about – films that explore the diverse realities, complexities, joys and sorrows that make up the global queer experience as well as celebrate queer identities in an entertaining manner.
FESTIVAL LOGO
The new logo of KASHISH Pride Film Festival was unveiled on April 5th 2024.
Created by designer duo Inderjit Nagi & Syed Ali Arif, who said about the design, “For the new logo, we wished to retain the butterfly, a quintessential element from the existing logo, and redesign it to include all colours of the pride & trans flags. We decided to embed the letters ‘KPFF’ into the butterfly itself. Just like the various identities of LGBTQ+ community that attend the festival we also created the word ‘KASHISH’ by mixing few fonts & design elements, making the new branding truly iconic & originally queer. This new look is fun, quirky, and contemporary, exuding a strong recall value.”
