The KASHISH Mumbai International Queer Film Festival (also known as Mumbai International Queer Film Festival and Mumbai International Queer Film Festival) is an annual LGBT event that has been held in Mumbai, India, since 2010. The film festival screens gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer films from India and around the world. It is voted as one of the top five LGBT film festivals in the world.
Background
2009 was a historic year for the LGBT movement in India. On 2 July 2009, the Delhi High Court court ruling decriminalised homosexual intercourse between consenting adults and judged Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code to be conflicting with the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution of India. This brought a respite to the Indian LGBT community that has been repressed and marginalized. This also led to open celebrations by LGBT persons including pride parades in many of the metros.
This was followed by the relaunch of India's first gay magazine, Bombay Dost. The Indian Election Commission decided to recognize transgender as a separate category. All these activities brought media focus and visibility to the LGBT community in India.
KASHISH Mumbai Queer Film Festival took this movement forward through the medium of films. It made LGBT persons, their desires and aspirations visible through films and brought about an international perspective to LGBT works. The objective of the festival continues to mainstream the LGBT community and project them as 'normal' human beings who have the capacity to love and live with dignity. The festival offers cinema as a means to understand what being queer means today, and how it impacts both the queer community and the society at large.
It was the first Indian LGBT film festival to be held in a mainstream theater. It was also the first LGBT film festival to obtain a clearance from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (India).
The festival
KASHISH Mumbai International Queer Film Festival, 2010 was held between 22 and 25 April 2010, spread across two venues in Mumbai – one in the city and one in the suburbs. The first edition was organized by Solaris Pictures and The Humsafar Trust in association with Bombay Dost. Features, short films, documentaries and experimental films were screened that highlighted gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender characters and stories. The films explored the diverse realities, complexities, joys and sorrows that make up the global queer experience. They also celebrated, reclaimed, and explained LGBTQ identities while engaging and entertaining audiences. The film festival brought together the audience, the films and their makers to create social change.
In its debut year, founder Festival Director Sridhar Rangayan said he hoped that the film festival would encourage greater visibility of queer cinema and bring it into the mainstream discourse. He has said that the festival showcases the films to both queer and mainstream audiences, in order to make them aware of queer thought, desires and expressions.
The festival boasts of support from Indian film personalities. Shyam Benegal is the Festival Patron. Celina Jaitly was the Festival Ambassador till 2020.
The advisory board of the festival is composed of eminent personalities like Aruna Raje Patil, Dolly Thakore, Meghna Ghai Puri, Onir, Renuka Shahane and Roy Wadia. In the past years Nandini Sardesai, Shernaz Patel and Jenni Olson (USA) also served on the advisory board.
Some of the chief guests and guests of honour at the festival have been Sir Ian McKellen, Sonam Kapoor, Arjun Kapoor, Raveena Tandon, Konkana Sen Sharma, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Rajkumar Rao, Swara Bhaskar, Divya Dutta, Pratik Gandhi, Ranveer Brar, Shalmali, Pooja Bhatt, Nisa Godrej, Anupam Kher, Kunal Kapoor, Juhi Chawla, Manisha Koirala, Nandita Das, Sai Paranjpye, Kabir Bedi, Kalpana Lajmi, Zeenat Aman, Moushumi Chatterjee, Onir, Tanuja Chandra, Neeraj Ghaywan, Sanjay Suri, Neelam Kothari, Rajeshwari Sachdeva, Varun Badola, Shweta Kawatra, Varun Grover, Shalmali_Kholgade, Rekha Bhardwaj, Simone Singh, Sona Mohapatra, Anant Mahadevan, Dalip Tahil, Shaina NC, Aleque Padamsee, Apurva Asrani, Suchitra Pillai-Malik, Purab Kohli, Adhuna Bhabani, Prince Manvendra Singh Gohil, Laxmi Narayan Tripathi and Sushant Divgikar.
KASHISH since 2010 to 2016 has been 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.