BQFF 2019 - Brochure

THE BANGALORE th
1 0
QUEER FILM Anniver
sary
FESTIVAL #BQFF2019
I'm crying cuz I love you
We’ve turned ten! And we didn’t make it so far on our own.
One of the several perks of being a volunteer-run, community-

funded event has been that friends from the community and
of the community have come in, rolled up their sleeves, hitched
up their hemlines and taken charge over the many years.
From the first public film festival called ‘Bangalored’, held

with our signature spread of mattresses at the Attakkalari
Studios and helmed by the good folks of Pedestrian Pictures,
Swabhava’s Vinay Chandran (who remains the longest-
running festival director), Sangama, and the funding prowess
of Bangalore’s former party starter Abhishek Agarwal, to the
smaller festivals organised at a screening room in the Sona
Towers, to its present avatar as the Bangalore Queer Film
Festival – this festival has become its own beauty, its own
beast. Over this decade-long journey, we’ve been held and
nurtured by support groups like Good As You, We’re Here
And Queer and All Sorts of Queers; individuals like Karthik
Vaidyanathan, Nanju Reddy and Siddharth Narrain (who
were part of the organising team in the early editions) and
organisations like the Alliance Française de Bangalore and
Goethe Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan.
A question that everyone involved with the festival asks at its

end: How did we make this happen again? And while we’ve
come up with lots of lies to drive out these doubts, in truth: we
have no real idea. Nearly five months before the date of the
festival, someone (it has never ever been the same person)
sends out a message: When are we doing our first meeting
for next year’s BQFF? And from then on, it is just a matter
of moving our lives and work schedules around to make it
happen – because it will happen either way. This festival is a
drama queen that needs her audience. And we’re all just her
makeup and wigs department.
But even before this questions bleeps onto our phone screens
from other members of the organising team, it is you – our
audience – who always ask: BQFF is happening right?
(Sometimes just a week after one has gone by.) And I think
it is the need to always answer in the affirmative that keeps
this festival going. The festival has always been bigger than
the people who run it (and it will always be), it has been about
you and you alone – our audience. So, we’d like to say – we
love you! Thanks for coming each and every year, for being
patient with our shortcomings, for encouraging our flights of
fancy and for allowing us to show you films. We’ve been super
thrilled to have you with us. And want to see more of you in
the years to come.
Now, flip through the brochure and enjoy the programme we’ve
put together for you at the tenth edition of the Bangalore
Queer Film Festival over the next four days! Happy viewing,
lovelies, cuties and hensems! And hey, eat a slice of cake for us!
Contents
7 Schedule
17 Feature Films
31 Documentaries
43 Short Documentaries
55 Institut Française
61 Public Service Broadcasting

Trust (PSBT) –'Engaging with
Sexualities'
71 Shorts
119 Holding You Close: The BQFF

Art Exhibition
125 Panels
129 Performances
134 Ten Years of Gratitude
140 Film Contacts

Schedule
Thursday, August 1
Alliance Française de Bangalore
10 : 30 AM Ti Gars (One of the Guys)

2018 | Doris Buttignol
France/Canada | 1 hr 32 min | French
12 : 03 PM [ MORNING BREAK ]
12 : 10 PM Megg - The Margin who Migrate to the Center

2018 | Larissa Nepomuceno and Eduardo Sanches
Brazil | 15 min | Portugese
12 : 25 PM Lupah Sug
2018 | Rhadem Camlian Morados
Philippines | 29 min | Filipino
12 : 55 PM Ishq, Dosti and All That

2018 | Srishti Lakhera, Rituparna Borah, Ritambhara Mehta,
and Bhamati Sivapalan
India | 19 min
1 : 15 PM [ LUNCH ]
2 : 00 PM I’m Moshanty. Do You Love Me?

2018 | Tim Wolff
Papua New Guinea | 1 hr 12 min | English
3 : 12 PM Breaking Out!
2018 | Heshvanth Gurukul
India | 25 min | Hindi
3 : 37 PM Kiko
2018 | Jojo Driz
Philippines | 2018 | 20 min | Filipino
3 : 58 PM Lalla
2018 | José Salazar
France | 2018 | 13 min | French
4 : 11 PM MMF
2017 | Leonard Garner
Germany | 10 min | German/English
9
4 : 22 PM I’m Not There

2018 | Ajita Banerjie
India | 12 min | English/Hindi
4 : 35 PM Un Homme Mon Fils

2017 | Florent Gouëlou
France | 34 min | French
5 : 10 PM [ EVENING BREAK ]
5 : 20 PM 2015
2018 | Eluna R. Cepeda
Philippines | 14 min | Filipino
5 : 34 PM Breathe
2018 | Anushka Shivdasani Rovshen and Madhuri Mohindar
5 : 56 PM Only What You Need to Know About Me

2018 | Maria Augusta V. Nunes
6 : 11 PM A Safe Person to Talk to

2018 | Navdeep Sharma
6 : 40 PM La sociologue et l’ourson
2016 | Mathias Théry and Etienne Chaillou
France | 1 hr 18 min | French
8 : 00 PM Cinderella
2018 | Mehdi Aghajani
Iran | 25 min | Persian
8 : 30 PM A Woman Is A Woman
2018 | Maisy Goosy Suen
Hong Kong | 1 hr 33 min | Cantonese & some English
Friday, August 2
Alliance Française de Bangalore
10 : 00 AM No Box For Me. An Intersex Story

2018 | Floriane Devigne
11 : 00 AM [ MORNING BREAK ]
11 : 15 AM Flora
2018 | Chaerin Im
USA | 4 min | English
11 : 20 AM Mort-Bois, a young Jean Genet

2018 | Frédéric Labonde and Frédéric Bonnet
11 : 49 AM Zara Nazar Utha Ke Dekho

2018 | Anindya Shankar Das
India | 24 min | English/Hindi/Punjabi/Kannada/Bengali
12 : 13 PM Falling
2016 | Tang Kang Sheng
Singapore | 24 min | English
12 : 37 PM Framing Agnes
2018 | Chase Joynt
Canada and USA | 19 min | English
12 : 57 PM Splendid Case of Doubt

2018 | Daniel Moshel
Austria | 4 min | No dialogue
1 : 00 PM [ LUNCH ]
2 : 00 PM Breakup in 9 Scenes
2018 | Leil Zahra Mortada
Lebanon | 15 min | English
2 : 15 PM Nján Sánjo (I’m Sánjo)

2019 | Jijo Kuriakose
India | 15 min | Malayalam
2 : 30 PM Reality Fragment 160921

2018 | Qigemu (Jasmine Lin + April Lin)
UK/USA/Sweden | 14 min | English/Mandarin
11
2 : 45 PM La Flaca (The Bony Lady)

2018 | Thiago Zanato and Adriana Barbosa
USA, Brazil and Mexico | 20 min | Spanish
3 : 05 PM Came The Wave

2018 | Benjamin Busnel
France | 20 mins | French
3 : 25 PM La Religiosa
2018 | Andrea Armentano and Sofía Torre
Argentina | 22 min | Spanish
3 : 47 PM Finding Prayers
2019 | Nilay Samiran Nandi
India | 21 min | Bengali
4 : 08 PM Our Stories Our Journeys

2018 | Christy Raj
India | 11 min | Kannada/Tamil/Telugu/Malayalam
4 : 20 PM Eli - A Portrait
2018 | Lumen Nguyen
Germany | 7 min | German
4 : 30 PM [ EVENING BREAK ]
4 : 40 PM Si Chedeng at si Apple (Chedeng and Apple)

2017 | Rae Red and Fatrick Tabada
Philippines | 1 hr 27 min | Filipino
6 : 20 PM PERFORMANCE :
Nanna Dhvani with Revathi
7 : 00 PM Yeh Freedom Life / This Freedom Life

2018 | Priya Sen
India | 1 hr 10 min | Hindi
8 : 20 PM Nocturama
2016 | Bertrand Bonello
France/Germany | 2 hr 10 min | French
Saturday, August 3
Goethe Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan
10 : 34 AM Katha Vachak
2019 | Deepak Srinivasan
India | 22 min | English/Hindi/Kannada
10 : 57 AM Please Mind The Gap

2018 | Mitali Trivedi and Gagandeep Singh
India | 20 min | Hindi
11 : 05 AM [ MORNING BREAK ]
11 : 20 AM Snail
2017 | Mohammad Towrivarian
Iran | 11 min | Kurdish and Persian
11 : 31 AM Transfinite
2018 | Neelu Bhuman
US/UK/India | 1 hr 10 min | English
12 : 42 PM Reinaldo’s Motifs
2018 | Ricardo Vieira Lisboa
Portugal | 9 min | Silent
12 : 52 PM Estigma
2018 | David Velduque
Spain | 14 min | Spanish
1 : 06 PM [ LUNCH ]
2 : 17 PM Languages
2019 | Debadrita Bose
2 : 47 PM Miss Man [International Premiere]

2019 | Tathagata Ghosh
3 : 12 PM Naach Bhikhari Naach

2019 | Shilpi Gulati and Jainendra Dost
India | 1 hr 12 min | Bhojpuri
13
4 : 25 PM Art Inaugration
5 : 00 PM Song Lang
2018 | Leon Le
Vietnam | 1 hr 41 min | Vietnamese
6 : 50 PM Film Panel i :
Language of Films
7 : 35 PM Dante vs Mohammed Ali

2018 | Marc Wagenaar
The Netherlands | 28 min | Dutch
8 : 04 PM Selma After The Rain

2018 | Loli Menezes
8 : 16 PM La Primavera Trans
2018 | Juan David Cortés Hernández
Colombia | 25 min
9 : 00 PM El Silencio Es Un Cuerpo Que Cae (Silence is a

Falling Body)
2017 | Agustina Comedi
Argentina | 1 hr 15 min | Spanish
Sunday, August 4
Goethe Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan
10 : 20 AM Birthday
2018 | Shine Louise Houston
10 : 27 AM May
2018 | Harold Antony Paulson
10 : 41 AM Things Break In
2017 | Tess Harrison
10 : 48 PM Birds of Paradise
2018 | Rahul Sudha Mahesh
11 : 00 AM Film Panel ii :
How to Make a Queer Image
12 : 10 PM Tin Satyi ... (In Fact ...)

2018 | Debalina
1 : 02 PM [ LUNCH ]
2 : 00 PM Mud Mud Ke Na Dekh

2019 | Mujeer Pasha and Veena Kulkarni
India | 22 min | Hinglish
2 : 21 PM Langit Budak Biru

2018 | Lim Kean Hian
Malaysia | 23 min | Malay
2 : 44 PM The Housemaids
2018 | Asawari Jagushte
India | 23 min | English
3 : 07 PM Hands and Wings

2018 | Sungbin Byun
South Korea | 18 min | Korean
15
3 : 25 PM An Abstract
2019 | Manoj Thorat
India | 20 min | English
3 : 45 PM [ BREAK ]
4 : 00 PM Udalaazham
2018 | Unnikrishnan Avala
India | 1 hr 59 min | Malayalam
6 : 10 PM Poetry Reading
7 : 10 PM U Ushacha (U for Usha)

2019 | Rohan Parashuram Kanawade
India | 22 min | Marathi
7 : 32 PM Lack
2018 | Ramin Farzaneh and Parisa Sedaei-Azar
Iran | 22 min | Azerbaijani
7 : 55 PM Night Watch [International Premiere]

2018 | João Victor Borges
8 : 18 PM El niño que quería volar

2018 | Jorge Muriel
Spain | 20 min | Spanish
8 : 38 PM Pashi
2017 | Siddharth Chauhan
India | 32 min | Pahari
9 : 15 PM Meili
2018 | Zhou Zhou
Taiwan, China | 1 hr 29 min | Chinese
Feature Films
Thursday • 8:30 pm feature films 18
Thursday • 8:30 pm feature films 19
A Woman Is A Woman Is A Woman features the

story of two trans women Sung Chi
A Woman Yu and Chiu Ling Fung. Sung Chi

Yu, after her surgery, creates a new
Hong Kong | 2018 | 1 hr 33 min | life with a man and his daughter,
Cantonese & some English choosing to not reveal herself as
a trans woman. Everything is fine
till her husband accidentally finds
out. Chiu Ling Fung has always
known she is different. Raised by a
religious, conservative family, she
is constantly told to man-up. At the
age of 16, she starts to explore the
notion of love and panics when she
can only dream as a girl.
Director:
Maisy Goosy Suen
Maisy Goosy Suen is a

graduate of the Baptist
University majoring in
Film and Media Art and
runs a video company
called Feedthedog
Production. She has
directed six short films. A
Woman is a Woman is her
first feature.
Friday • 4:40 pm feature films 20
Friday • 4:40 pm feature films 21
Si Chedeng In the wake of her husband’s death,

Chedeng, 66, decides to come out
at si Apple of the closet. Her best friend Apple,

63, beheads her live-in partner in
a fit of rage. Bound by friendship,
(Chedeng and the two elderly women set off on
Apple) an adventure to find Chedeng’s
ex-girlfriend. Two veteran Filipina
Philippines | 2017 | 1 hr 27 min | beauty queen/actresses reunite to
Filipino star in this black comedy about
wacky women on the run.
Directors: Rae Red

and Fatrick Tabada
Rae Red co-wrote and

edited the 2016 thriller
Birdshot. Fatrick Tabada
co-wrote the 2016
comedy Jesus is Dead
(2016). Chedeng & Apple
is their directorial debut.
Sunday • 9:15 pm feature films 22
Meili Meili is an ill-fated girl. She was

abandoned by her parents and has
Taiwan, China | 2018 | 1 hr 29 min | a complicated relationship with her
Chinese sister and brother-in-law, who are
constantly harassing her for money.
In order to get away from it all,
Meili wants to follow her girlfriend
Li Wen to Shanghai. But Li Wen has
other plans and leaves Meili behind.
Meili meets new friends and gets
new job opportunities, but more
deceptions are to come.
Director: Zhou Zhou
Zhou Zhou has been a

critic and editor for many
years. He currently serves
as a script consultant for
Jiaying Film. Meili is Zhou
Zhou’s first feature film,
it got three nominations
and one Award at the
12th Xining IFF (Best
Performer).
Saturday • 5:00 pm feature films 24
Saturday • 5:00 pm featuresfilms
feature 25
Song Lang It’s 1980s in Saigon. Linh Phung

is the star of a travelling opera
Vietnam | 2018 | 1 hr 41 min | troupe deep in debt to a local loan
Vietnamese shark. Dung Thunderbolt is the
enforcer come to collect. After an
unlikely friendship forms between
the two, Linh Phung learns how a
lived life is necessary for art and
Dung follows art back to a life
worth living.
Director: Leon Le
Writer/director/actor (2012) that he wrote

Leon Le was born in and directed won critical
Vietnam and moved with acclaim and screened
his family to Southern at over 30 film festivals
California at the age worldwide garnering
of 13. After college he many awards. His next
began a career in musical short film Talking to
theatre after which he My Mother (2014)
established himself as started its festival run in
an actor/dancer/singer, 2015 and has also won
including Broadway, film many awards.
and TV as well as acting Song Lang, filmed
roles in TV series and entirely in Vietnam, is
feature films in Vietnam. his debut feature and
His multiple award is earning significant
winning short film Dawn awards worldwide.
Saturday • 11:31 am feature films 26
Saturday • 11:31 am feature films 27
Transfinite Transfinite is a sci-fi omnibus

feature film composed of seven
US/UK/India | 2018 | 1 hr 10 min | stand-alone magical realistic short
English stories where supernatural trans
and queer people from various
cultures use their powers to protect,
love, teach, fight and thrive.
Director: Neelu Bhuman
Neelu is an independent FU377 (2014) has won

filmmaker exploring best animation awards in
social and political New Delhi, New York City
themes as they play and Kolkata film festivals,
out in close relations. while Love Letter/Prema
Playfully evoking insights Lekha (2016) garnered
into the workings of the best short in Graphic
difference in intimacy, her Arts category at the Tunis
films blend viewpoints Chouftouhonna Feminist
ranging from race, gender, Festival. His films have
sexuality, culture, class screened at over 70
and romance. Neelu’s film festivals worldwide.
Udalaazham Gulikan, born and brought up as a

boy in a tribal settlement, has the
India | 2018 | 1 hr 59 min | body and the soul of a girl. He was
Malayalam married in childhood to Maathi.
Dark skinned, fragile, introverted
and vulnerable, he struggles to
balance his life working as a coolie
in the city.
Director: Unnikrishnan Avala
Unnikrishnan Avala is a coveted awards given by

documentary filmmaker, the Kerala State. He has
author, teacher, and a authored three books,
freelance journalist. His one of which was on the
documentaries have life and works of the
been well received in renowned Malayalam
film festivals and won filmmaker Kamal.
Documentaries
Thursday • 2:00 pm DOCUMENTARies 32
I'm I’m Moshanty. Do You Love Me?

tells the story of the legendary
Moshanty. South Pacific recording artist and

transgender human rights activist
Do You Moses Moshanty Tau and the

transgender community of Papua
Love Me? New Guinea.
Papua New Guinea | 2018 | 1 hr 12

min | English
Director: Tim Wolff
This is the second feature

documentary for Tim
Wolff, previously entering
full distribution with his
first doc feature The Sons
of Tennessee Williams.
Saturday • 8:16 pm DOCUMENTARies 33
La This blossoming spring roars

through the streets that there won’t
Primavera be a minute of silence but a lifetime

of struggle. That their murdered
Trans ancestors, swept away by cement

and oblivion rise up like a wave of
platform flowers, their bones are the
Colombia | 2018 | 25 min
possession of all those who survive
discrimination, exclusion and
transphobia.
Dead under the hands of the
world and on their own arms,
today, like a silent monument, the
root of this struggle blossoms in
cement. Today something does
happen, today they are everywhere,
in all people; because they will be
able to cut each and everyone of
the flowers but they will not stop
spring. Right now: transvestite
spring, transsexual, trans-human,
trans-powerful, insurrectionary,
beautifully grotesque, wild, furious,
one’s own, crazy, free. Trans spring.
´ Hernandez
Director: Juan David Cortes ´
He studied film direction commercial projects
and production at the produced in Colombia
Universidad Politécnico with his audiovisual
Grancolombiano in brand Les Moustaches.
Bogotá, Colombia. He is currently in pre-
With 32 years of age production of his first
he has written and feature documentary for
worked in the area of the Trans Community
photography, direction Network and writing his
and editing in several first feature fiction.
Naach Naach is a form of traditional

folk theatre from Bihar, India. In
Bhikhari this tradition, male artists often

cross dress as women on stage
Naach and are referred to as ‘laundas’.

The most legendary name in this
tradition is Bhikhari Thakur’s —
India | 2019 | 1 hr 12 min | Bhojpuri
an actor, playwright, and a social
reformer popularly known as the
‘Shakespeare of Bhojpuri.’ The
film follows the last four Naach
performers to have worked him and
creates a visual archive of their
performance tradition.
Directors: Shilpi Gulati and Jainendra Dost
Shilpi Gulati is a Pakistan, Nepal, Korea, as a theatre practitioner

filmmaker, researcher and UK and the United States. over the 18 years where
theatre artist based out She is a doctoral student he has directed stage
of New Delhi. Her work at Jawaharlal Nehru productions and acted
documents the experience University and currently in numerous national
and politics of regional researching contemporary and international theatre
communities in India documentary practice presentations. Jainendra
through oral history, in India. is also the Director
ethnography, performance of Bhikhari Thakur
and socially engaged art. Jainendra Dost is a Repertory Training and
In 2015, her documentary doctoral scholar at Research Centre that
Qissa-e Parsi: The Parsi the School of Arts and is working towards the
Story won the National Aesthetics, Jawaharlal revival of folk theatre
Film Award for the Nehru University, India. and Music in Bihar. In
Best Ethnographic His work examines the past, his work has
film in India and her the social and political been supported by India
latest works, Lock and realities of Launda Nach Foundation for the Arts
Key (2017) and Naach and Bhikhari Thakur’s and the Ministry of
Bhikhari Naach (2018), folk theatre in Bihar. His Culture, Government
have been screened theoretical inquiry closely of India.
and awarded in India, ties into his experience
Friday • 10:00 am DOCUMENTARies 36
No Box Often intersex is still dealt with as

a pathology that must be treated
For Me. An and repaired. The film reflects

on the way intersex people seek
Intersex to re-appropriate their bodies

and construct their identities. It
Story questions what our societies are

ready to do in the name of social
norms and what it means to be a
man, a woman or a little of both.
Director: Floriane Devigne
Floriane Devigne was Traces de Vies, among

born in Lausanne, in others. Then she directed
Swiss. She studied both at Dayana Mini Market for
INSAS and at the Fémis the TV channel Arte.
Film School in Paris. Soon This got the SCAM
after she directed Les award in 2014 and was
mots Clairewhich was also awarded at the
selected and awarded festival Filmer le Travail
at many festivals. Her (Poitier, France). She
first feature La clé de la has also directed several
chambre à lessive (72’) short films for Arte
co-directed with Fred and France 2. Her last
Florey won the SSR-SRG documentary No Box For
prize at the Vision du Me. An Intersex Story was
Réel Festival (Swiss) and broadcast on France 2
the diversity prize at in 2018.
El Silencio Jaime recorded everything, even his

own death. From him, her daughter
Es Un Cuerpo received more than one hundred
hours of home videos and many
Que Cae uncertainties. Like many people
of his generation, Jaime was a
(Silence is a clandestine person. But in his case,
probably two times clandestine.
Falling Body) The images recorded by Jaime,
resignify to give place to questions
Argentina | 2017 | 1 hr 15 min | around desire, sexuality, family and
Spanish freedom. Silence is a Falling Body
is the trip to an intimate and filial
past, but also to a political one.
Director: Agustina Comedi
Agustina Comedi, documentary feature

(Córdoba, Argentina), Silence is a Falling Body
is a screenwriter and at IDFA (‎Netherlands).
director. She has a degree Presently, she works as a
in Modern Literature and teacher of the Audiovisual
then studied dramaturgy Workshop at the Popular
with Mauricio Kartun, Bachelor Raymundo
and screenwriting with Gleyzer, and she is writing
Pablo Solarz. In 2017, her next film.
she premiered her first
Thursday • 10:30 am DOCUMENTARies 39
Ti Gars What defines a man? With the

support of her chain of command,
(One of the Corporal Virginie Lamarre, veteran

of Afghanistan, officially becomes a
Guys) man in the Canadian army.
France/Canada | 2018 | 1 hr 32 min |

French
Director: Doris Buttignol
Born in France, she began One of Many, screened

her artistic career in at the United Nations
Vancouver in the early to address the notion
1980s, collaborating on of cultural genocide,
projects related to the and No Gazaran, an
FLUXUS movement and investigation on shale
experimental work with gas in Europe. While
new technologies. working on her film One
She then began of the guys she is also
working in documentary developing a “playground”
filmmaking and has collaboration with a
written and directed over Palestinian filmmaker
20 films since 1990. Her depicting the games of
filmography includes the children in Gaza.
Sunday • 12:10 pm DOCUMENTARies 40
Tin Satyi…(In Fact…) captures

Tin Satyi... the essence of three different
life-stories that are defying the
(In Fact...) hetero-patriarchal norms of
society at every breath. Aimed at
India | 2018 | 51 min | Bengali understanding philosophies of non-
conforming desires, the film also
depicts ripples created by these
lives in the society.
Director: Debalina
Debalina, is an Desire… can be seen

independent filmmaker in conjunction with …
and cinematographer. and the unclaimed, a
She has made feature documentary made in
length documentary films, 2013. Her film Joy Run
short films, travelogues, was selected at the Shoot
music videos and Goals! Shoot Movies!
telefilms. She is also short film competition
a still photographer of the Berlinale Talent
and passionate about Campus 2005, and at the
issues of gender and 55th Berlin International
sexuality, environment Film Festival. Her film A
and occasionally writes Stranger in a Bioscope
for newspapers and was also a part of the
magazines. Debalina’s same festival, produced
latest film If You Dare by Sabotage Films, Berlin.
Friday • 7:00 pm 41
Yeh Freedom Life / This Freedom

Yeh Freedom Life was filmed over a year in
Dr. Ambedkar Nagar in Delhi.
Life / This It moves between the two very
different worlds of its protagonists
Freedom Life and tries to keep up with the
currents and swings of their
India | 2018 | 1 hr 10 min | Hindi
respective loves. One of them works
at a local beauty parlour, the other
runs the family’s small cigarette
counter at a crowded intersection.
They are surrounded by a
cacophonous city; they are both in
love with other women. The film
accompanies them through their
desire to find and live their ‘freedom
lives’ – lives that are outside society
and family’s constant scrutiny and
sanction. But this ‘freedom life’
also leaves them vulnerable to the
precariousness of love, when it
refuses such constraints.
Director: Priya Sen
Priya Sen works as a others. She has been at

filmmaker and artist residencies at Gasworks
across film/video, sound and Nottingham
and installation. Her work Contemporary in the UK,
has screened at various and Khoj Studios in New
festivals and venues Delhi. She was an India
including The Kitchen Foundation for the Arts
NYC, BFI London Film fellow at the AIIS Archive
Festival, Forum Expanded & Research Centre for
Berlinale, Experimenta: Ethnomusicology from
International Festival 2016 - 2017. Sen’s work
of Moving Image Art, with film and sound has
VIBGYOR International been around questions of
Short and Documentary form, urban ethnography,
Film Festival, and music and migration.
IAWRT Asian Women’s She lives and works in
Film Festival among New Delhi.
Short
Documentaries
Sunday • 3:25 pm short DOCUMENTARies 44
An Abstract An Abstract is a short documentary

about an androgynous person,
India | 2019 | 20 min | English Shreyash Sharma, living in India.
It talks about their journey,
experiences and opinions about so
many things related to the LGBT
community.
Director:
Manoj Thorat
Manoj Sunanda is a
queer short filmmaker
from Pune. He started
his journey with a short
film Bhram which talks
about casteism and
homosexuality in India.
Bhram was screened at
BQFF 2016.
Friday • 4:20 pm short DOCUMENTARies 45
Eli – A This short documentary-portrait

offers an intimate and honest look
Portrait at the intellectual world of a trans*

person. The film combines archival
Germany | 2018 | 7 min | German material to tell its story.
Director: Lumen Nguyen
Lumen Nguyen was born - HAW Hamburg and

1992 in Goslar and grew Eli – A Portrait is
up in Mönchengladbach. her graduation film.
She studies communication Lumen makes instant
design at the University photographs and films.
of Applied Sciences
La Flaca Arely Vazquez is a Mexican

transgender woman leader of the
(The Bony Saint Death Cult living in Queens,

New York. During her yearly
Lady) ritualistic celebration of La Flaca

(The Bony Lady), as she likes to call
the skeletal saint of the cult, Arely
USA, Brazil and Mexico | 2018 |
faces a lot of challenges to fulfill a
20 min | Spanish
promise she made ten years ago.
Directors: Thiago Zanato and Adriana Barbosa
Adriana is a Mexican- Thiago Zanato is a film

Brazilian filmmaker based and creative director
in São Paulo. In 2016, she living in Los Angeles,
directed the short film California. He has over
Ferroada (Bite), selected 16 years of experience
at various film festivals. in advertising and has
She premiered her first worked for several of
documentary feature the biggest agencies and
Madrigal for a Living Poet production companies in
(2018) at the Official the US (TBWA, AKQA,
Competition of the CP+B, B-Reel and others)
21st Mostra de Cinema and Brazil (Isobar/Dentsu
de Tiradentes and she and Black Magic/IPG).
continues her research He is currently directing
on a documentary his first feature
about regional Mexican documentary Esu and the
traditions around death. Universe about an African
god brought to the
Americas by the enslaved
Yoruba people.
Thursday • 12:25 pm short DOCUMENTARies 48
Lupah Sug Lupag Sug translates to ‘land of the

brave’ in Tausug, a language used
Philippines | 2018 | 29 min | by a major ethnic group hailing
Filipino from Mindanao, the southernmost
island of the Philippines. This
half hour documentary narrates
firsthand accounts of the struggles
of a group of LGBTQI people for
a safe space and acceptance in
the region. Their stories detail
their experiences being LGBT and
Bangsamoro, a heterogeneous
ethno-linguistic group of Muslim
persons from Southern Philippines
who have long struggled for the
right to self-determination.
Director: Rhadem
Camlian Morados
Rhadem Camlian
Morados is a
documentary filmmaker
and a Peace & LGBT
Muslim Rights Activist
from the Philippines. He
directed and filmed a
documentary titled Hugo:
A hidden past revealed.
Megg - The The film features Megg Rayara, a

doctoral professor in Curitiba, and
Margin Who her trajectory of resistance as a
black transgender person in the
Migrate to academic world.
the Centre
Brazil | 2018 | 15 min | Portugese
Directors: Larissa
Nepomuceno and
Eduardo Sanches
Larissa Nepomuceno
& Eduardo Sanches
graduated in Visual Artes,
UFPR, and decided to
explore cinema in 2017.
Both express an interest
in art direction and
documentary.
´ Sanjo
Njan ´ Nján Sánjo (I’m Sánjo) documents
the life of a dynamic young man
´
(I'm Sanjo) named Sanjo in a transphobic
suburban locality. Sanjo’s insights
India | 2019 | 15 min | Malayalam
spill over the struggles with his
gender identity, lack of inclusive
spaces and minimal awareness
of trans masculine identities in
Kerala. Sánjo shares his passion for
mathematics, hockey etc. and how
they were key to his survival and
realizing his gender identity.
This short documentary
attempts to delve into questions
of autonomy of a trans man from
Kerala, and the scope of inclusion
for trans persons in contemporary
Indian society.
Director: Jijo Kuriakose
Jijo Kuriakose is a queer a photoseries, part of

activist who lives and a group show called
works in Kochi, Kerala. Homomorphism II, which
He is an active member opened at the Kerala
of Queerala and has Museum in Kochi.
worked previously on
Our Stories The film talks about the journeys

of trans men, who they are, their
Our Journeys trials and struggles, issues with
families, day to day problems like
India | 2018 | 11 min | Kannada/ use of public toilets, migration and
Tamil/Telugu/Malayalam challenges in a new place. It is
woven around the lives of 9 trans
men from 4 South Indian States.
The overarching aim is to highlight
their distinct life situations within
the hetero-patriarchal society
of India.
Director: Christy Raj
Christy Raj is a trans man. Correspondent for Video

He is an independent Volunteers. Previously
filmmaker and activist he has worked with
and makes films on Sangama, a human rights
newsworthy issues organisation based in
within the transgender Bangalore, as a video
community, as a Video documentarist.
Institut
¸
Francaise
Thursday • 6:40 pm Institut française 56
La From September 2012 to May 2013,

France gets passionate about the
sociologue bill allowing marriage for all. During
these 9 months, the sociologist
et l'ourson Irène Théry recounts to her son the

stakes of this debate. From these
recordings, the directors invent a
(The teddy bear cinema, made of toys
sociologist and and pieces of cardboard. Intimate
portrait and national saga, this film
the bear cub) makes us rediscover what we all
thought we knew perfectly: family.
France | 2016 | 1 hr 18 min | French
Directors:
´ and Etienne Chaillou
Mathias Thery
Mathias Théry is a Etienne Chaillou is a

director and writer, director, cinematographer
known for La vie après la and primarily a writer.
mort d’Henrietta Lacks The short film Ears Have
(2005) and Premier Vote: No Lids (2005) and
Considérant la jeunesse the TV documentary
(2017). Cherche Toujours
(2008) are his previous
directorial efforts.
Friday • 8:20 pm Institut française 58
One morning in Paris. A fistful

Nocturama of adolescents, from different
backgrounds. Individually, they
France/Germany | 2016 | 2 hr 10 min |
begin a strange dance through
French
the labyrinth of the metro and the
streets of the capital. They seem to
be following a plan.
Director: Bertrand Bonello
Bertrand Bonello was Pornographe), Tiresia,

born in 1968 and My New Picture, On War,
studied music before The House of Tolerance, a
becoming a filmmaker. He concert film Ingrid Caven,
directed his first feature, Musique et Voix, and
Organic (Quelque chose the biopic Saint Laurent.
d’organique), in 1998, for His films have screened
which he also wrote the at the most prestigious
screenplay and the music. film festivals in the
His other films include world and has garnered
The Pornographer (Le many awards.
Un Homme Fred is a projectionist, like his

father. As he has to project a silver
Mon Fils film in Normandie, he convinces
him to hit the road together. The
(A Man My road-trip will be a journey through
clash of generations, drag-queens
Son) and family affairs.
Director: Florent Gouelou
Florent Gouëlou was and fiction as in forms

born in 1985. Trained in more experimental,
theatre, he was an actor especially video for the
and production assistant stage (dance, theatre).
until he joined La Fémis A Man My Son is his
in 2013. Today, he is as graduation film.
interested in documentary
61
Public Service
Broadcasting Trust
(PSBT)
'Engaging with
Sexualities'
62
PSBT presents: Engaging with Sexualities
The lives, stories and struggles of queer persons are complex, difficult,
inspiring and moving, but remain largely excluded or caricatured
in much of cinema. Engaging with Sexualities comprises short
documentaries by starting out/ first-time filmmakers, that explore
sexualities, gender, identity, desire, love, rights, relationships, choice,
mental health and their intersectional experiences. Representing the
voices and lives of diverse people, they reflect the many dimensions
and facets of negotiating sexualities in public and private spaces
and the blurred nature of these distinctions. They bring forth a
range of complex realities and lived experiences, acknowledging the
simultaneity of joy, sorrow, chaos, courage and agency. Varied in both
– the narratives and their creative realisation, they speak powerfully
to unfolding queer rights moments/ movements and open up a
conversation on how filmmaking/ art might responsibly and positively
engage with queer lives in their myriad manifestations.
The tone of the films is confident and assuring, speaking directly to

institutionalised heteronormativity and the hegemony of the state
over identity, sexual expression and desire. They are empowering
journeys of affirmation and reclamation, an ode to the human
spirit and bear witness to our histories of self-realisation, love and
companionship.
The films are produced by the Public Service Broadcasting Trust, a

pioneering non-governmental, not-for-profit organisation based in
New Delhi, that commissions, mentors and produces independent
documentary films. Founded in 2000 to empower filmmakers,
democratise access to the media and encourage the freedom of
expression, it has supported and nurtured over 500 independent
voices and created around 700 documentaries on diverse themes and
subjects. Films produced by PSBT have been selected by professional
juries at over 1800 film festivals worldwide and received over 310
awards internationally.
For more, visit www.psbt.org

Thursday • 6:11 pm PSBT 63
A Safe Narrated through the voice of a

young person from a progressive
Person to South Delhi school, straddling the

binary world of genders, the film
Talk to demonstrates the importance of a

supportive environment created by
India | 2018 | 19 min | English/ adult and peer allies.
Hindi
Director: Navdeep Sharma
Navdeep Sharma studied sexuality and gender

English Literature at justice is reflected in
Hindu College before the choice of themes
training in documentary for his work both as a
filmmaking at AJK MCRC, practitioner and media
Jamia. His consistent researcher. His films
interest in exploring include Finding Juliana
issues surrounding gender in Delhi & Dilli and River,
expression and identity, Interrupted.
The film explores the intersections

Breathe between identity, sexuality, mental
health and the many alleys through
India | 2018 | 24 min | English/
which women negotiate freedom
Hindi
and dignity. It interweaves the
stories of Swati and Ray, as they
redefine the boundaries of intimacy,
desire and relationships.
Directors: Anushka Shivdasani Rovshen and Madhuri Mohindar
Anushka Shivdasani Prague, among others. contentious regions of

Rovshen’s independent Her company Running the world and Red Roses
film work explores Cow Films has directed exploring the immigrant
conditions of the and produced films for experiences of South
human mind. Us Paar various corporates. Asian women via a
(The Opposite Shore) beauty parlor in New
explores themes of Madhuri Mohindar York. Can’t Hide Me has
astrological superstition has directed various screened at New York,
and destiny. Her films documentaries exploring LA, Kenya, Afghanistan
have been screened at immigration, race and and features in the
the Gene Siskel Film gender including Can’t Social Impact Media
Center, Chicago, as well Hide Me on women Award human rights
as several international fighting invisible barriers, curriculum for teachers
festivals at Karachi, My Kashmir on being and educators.
Amsterdam, Toronto and young in one of the most
I'm Not The documentary explores the

relationship between migration and
There one’s gender and views migration as

a journey that allows one to leave
India | 2018 | 12 min | English/ behind a self that they don’t identify
Hindi with, and move to a new space,
seeking a new identity.
Director:
Ajita Banerjie
Ajita Banerjie is a
researcher on gender and
sexuality rights based
in New Delhi. This is her
first film.
Ishq, Dosti The film is a light-hearted take

on the lives of a transman and a
and All lesbian, as they reflect on their

loves, crushes, desires, dating
That experiences, friendships and

intimate relationships.
India | 19 min | English & Multiple
Indian Languages
Directors: Srishti Lakhera, Rituparna Borah,

Ritambhara Mehta, and Bhamati Sivapalan
The filmmaking collective with a focus on

are part of Nazariya, lesbian, bisexual, queer,
a Delhi-based queer genderqueer, non-binary
feminist resource group people assigned gender
working on issues of female at birth, and
gender and sexuality, trans men.
Saturday • 10:57 am PSBT 67
Saturday • 10:57 am PSBT 68
Please Delhi meets at the metro. The

snaking lines of the tube now
Mind The connect the whole city. Passengers’

board from different places but for
Gap a brief moment in time they are

all headed in the same direction.
We share one such ride with our
India | 2018 | 20 min | Hindi
co-traveller Anshuman, a trans
man. As the stations pass by we
begin to look at the metro space
from his perspective. His is the
story of reclaiming public space and
one’s own self. The doors will open
on the quest. Please mind the gap.
Directors:
Mitali Trivedi and Gagandeep Singh
Mitali Trivedi completed Natya Association—a

her Masters in Gender theatre organization—for
Studies from Ambedkar over half a decade.
University, Delhi
and is currently a Gagandeep Singh is a
research scholar in the lawyer and a theatre
Department of Sociology, practitioner. He is deeply
University of Delhi. She interested in the historical
has also been involved evolution of laws and
in theatre and has been holds a Masters degree in
working with Abhigyan Environmental Laws.
Friday • 11:49 am PSBT 69
Zara The documentary juxtaposes

personal narratives of cruising from
Nazar the LGBTQ community, against

diverse visuals of Indian public
Utha Ke spaces, revealing different facets

and complexities of urban cruising.
Dekho
India | 2018 | 24 min | English/
Hindi/Punjabi/Kannada/Bengali
Director: Anindya Shankar Das
A direction graduate colleges, street hawkers

from the Film and and multinationals. He
Television Institute of has shot and edited a
India, Anindya Shankar number of documentaries,
Das is a filmmaker and music videos,
photographer involved experimental and short
in all aspects of film films and is currently
technology. He has working on the script of a
worked as a trainer for feature length film.
students of schools and
Shorts
Thursday • 5:20 pm shorts 72
2015 A lesbian couple is making the

most of their last day together
Philippines | 2018 | 14 min | Filipino inside their home, before one of
them leaves for good.
Director: Eluna R. Cepeda
Eluna R. Cepeda (EC), 28, Arkeofilms, Quiapost

worked as a production & Contagious Inc. She
assistant in EDSA XXX wants to explore writing
under the direction of queer stories and its
Khavn Dela Cruz after potentials, by portraying
graduating in 2012. Since LGBTQ characters that
then, she has worked with experience pain and
TV and film production rejection and how they
houses like Kamias Road, overcome these.
Sunday • 10:48 am shorts 73
Birds of The film travels through a day in

the life of three transgender people
Paradise set amidst the binary morality of

society.
India | 2018 | 10 min | Malayalam
Director:
Rahul Sudha Mahesh
Rahul Sudha Mahesh was

born and raised in Kerala,
India. He is a student at
the Film and Television
Institute of India in Pune.
Birds of Paradise is his
first short film.
Birthday A night out, an old friend, and a

special treat coalesce in this poetic
USA | 2018 | 7 min | English short film.
Director: Shine Louise Houston
As the producer and for an alternative to

director of Pink & White mainstream pornography,
Productions, Shine and began to create
Louise Houston’s works well-crafted queer made
have become the new porn. Shine’s films have
gold standard of adult been recognized among
cinema. During a five the next big wave
year position at the of women produced
women-owned, sex toy porn and have been
purveyor Good Vibrations, internationally screened
Shine recognized an from Amsterdam to
under-served demand New Zealand.
Breaking A boy from a orthodox,

conventional background gets
Out! attracted to another boy who is a

gay rights activist and is hated by
India | 2018 | 25 min | Hindi others for being one. The story is
about the troubles these boys have
to face because of their attraction
to each other.
Director: Heshvanth Gurukul
Heshvanth Gurukul, an films. He won a runner-up

engineer, left his job at position in the Short
Bosch to pursue a career Film Making category
in films. He got a diploma at the Indywood Talent
in direction, and has Hunt 2018.
made a couple of short
Friday • 2:00 pm shorts 76
Breakup in “On the morning you disappeared,

the morning you sent that message
9 Scenes and deactivated your account, I

wrote ‘Breakup in 9 scenes’. A day
Lebanon | 2018 | 15 min | English after the military took power. A day
after the revolution broke up with
us. I wasn’t angry at you, I wasn’t
angry at me, I was disappointed.
Which loss is paralysing me
more? How does one live with
disappointment? What is the
physical action associated with
disappointment? Anger is much
easier. Sadness is much easier.
Hatred is the easiest. But I don’t
hate you.”
Director: Leil Zahra Mortada
Leil-Zahra Mortada is work has a major focus

a transfeminist queer on gender, sexualities,
activist and filmmaker, documentation,
born in Beirut. Leil has freedom of movement,
formed part of several protest movements,
alternative media groups discrimination, freedom
and political collectives of expression, and
in Lebanon, Egypt and post-colonialism.
the Spanish State. Their
Came The While a disaster hits the country,

two women organize their survival
Wave in a lost forest.
France | 2018 | 20 mins | French
Director: Benjamin Busnel
Benjamin Busnel is has directed several

scriptwriter and director, shorts, music videos,
working with comedy brandcontent videos and
and strange drama. short comedies. His short
After his graduation, he movies have won prizes
studied production at the in festivals in France and
Boulogne Billancourt’s abroad. In 2013 Benjamin
Audiovisual. In the 2000s, created Inernet, a humour
he started directing youtube channel which
shorts, and joined the first currently has 2,40,000
trans oriented French subscribers and more
media company. Benjamin than 24 millions views.
Cinderella The groom, exasperated by his

despot father, joins the loonies to
Iran | 2018 | 25 min | Persian disrupt his own wedding
Director:
Mehdi Aghajani
Mehdi Aghajani is a himself from the common

graphics artist, animator, realistic atmosphere of
scriptwriter, director, Iranian cinema and to
and producer. One of the employ mental, surreal
characteristics of this and fantasy atmospheres
director is to distance with an Iranian approach.
Saturday • 7:35 pm shorts 79
Dante vs Twenty-year-old Wolf is living

in the boxing village of the
Mohammed Netherlands. When he has to fight
against his best friend Alexander
Ali during a weekly match, he refuses.

A rematch is confirmed, which
The Netherlands | 2018 | 28 min |
brings Wolf’s feelings and emotions
Dutch
to a boiling point. He tries to
convince Alexander to join him in
leaving the village, but his overly
romantic message runs into a wall.
Director:
Marc Wagenaar
Marc received his Bachelor

in Communication in his
hometown, Nijmegen.
To develop his passion
for film he moved to
Berlin on the invitation
of the award-winning
documentary maker
Viola Stephan.
Sunday • 8:18 pm shorts 81
~
El nino que In the Madrid of the 80s, Ivan, a
five-year-old boy, is confronted with
´ volar
queria the birth of a new brother. His sister
is dad’s favourite, the newborn is
Spain | 2018 | 20 min | Spanish mom’s favorite. Which place does he
take in this new situation? What if
he could fly and escape?
Director: Jorge Muriel
Born in Madrid, Spain, NY Film Academy, Susan

Jorge Muriel has an Batson Studio and Actors
Economics Degree and a Center. He writes, directs
double major in Drama. A and produces his films.
Fulbright grant student His short film Lemon
from 1999-2001, he lives Juice was nominated as
in NYC and completed his best short film of the
education in HB Studio, year, GOYA Awards 2010.
Estigma It’s Friday night, the bell rings and

Alex opens the door to the worst of
Spain | 2018 | 14 min | Spanish his fears.
Director: David Velduque
David spent his childhood films Por Un Beso (2016),

halfway between Madrid Crudo (2017) & No Place
and Lisbon, devouring J.J. Like Home (2017) have
Benitez’s UFO stories and generated more than 10
embracing the work of million views, alongside
leading directors such several nominations in
as Michael Haneke, international festivals
Wes Craven, Alejandro such as Film Out (San
Amenábar, Alfonso Diego) or Roze Filmdagen
Cuarón and the famous (Amsterdam).
‘90s science-fiction TV
Series The X- Files. His
Falling Zhiling and Yu En spend the night

struggling to come to terms with
Singapore | 2016 | 24 min | English their breakup before dawn breaks.
Director: Tang Kang Sheng
Tang Kang Sheng is which Passenger was

currently pursuing a awarded the Special
Master of Fine Arts Jury Prize and Best
degree in Production, Performance Award at the
majoring in Directing at 6th Singapore Short Film
the School of Theater, Awards. Falling has been
Film and Television, screened in multiple film
UCLA. He has directed festivals in Asia.
seven short films, of
Finding 1.6 million die in violence annually.

Natural disasters claim nearly
Prayers 250,000 lives every year. 1 in every

6 people on Earth don’t get enough
India | 2019 | 21 min | Bengali food to live. 1 person dies due to
suicide every 40 seconds. 607 go
missing every day. And beside
these, in every single second, 4
children see the light of this earth.
The film attempts to find in the idea
of a prayer for this world through
documenting a transgender artist’s
struggle-filled life.
Director:
Nilay Samiran Nandi
Nilay Samiran Nandi

is a Kolkata-based
filmmaker who has made
a number of short films,
a documentary and a
feature length film.
Friday • 11:15 am shorts 85
Flora Experimental animation about

gender, sexuality, and the
USA | 2018 | 4 min | English awkwardness of division. Uncanny
sculptures of vaginas and penises
are the main elements.
Director: Chaerin Im
Chaerin Im is a woman Visual Communication

filmmaker who focuses Design BFA program in
on sexuality and gender 2017 and is currently
issues through animation. studying at CalArts
She graduated from Seoul Experimental Animation
National University’s MFA program.
Framing In the late 1950s, a woman

named Agnes approached the
Agnes UCLA Medical Center seeking

sex reassignment surgery. Her
Canada and USA | 2018 | 19 min | story was long considered to be
English exceptional and singular until
never-before-seen case files of
other patients were found in 2017.
Director: Chase Joynt
Chase Joynt is an book, You Only Live

internationally award- Twice (co-authored with
winning filmmaker and Mike Hoolboom), is a
writer. His latest two 2017 Lambda Literary
films Genderize and Award Finalist and named
Between You and Me are one of the Best Books of
distributed online by the 2016 by The Globe and
Canadian Broadcasting Mail and CBC. Chase
Corporation. His film is currently a Banting
Everyday to Stay won Postdoctoral Fellow at the
Best Documentary at University of Chicago.
BQFF in 2012. His first
Hands and Mi-Sook helps her son Woo-Sung

with masturbation because he has a
Wings disability that makes him unable to

do this himself. One day, Woo-Sung
South Korea | 2018 | 18 min | rejects his mom’s offer to help.
Korean
Director: Sungbin Byun
Born in 1991, Byun film The Chicken of

is studying Film TV Wuzuh (2015) was also
& Multimedia and invited to the Busan
Eastern Philosophy International Film
at Sungkyunkwan Festival and received
University. His short film the Golden Reel Award
Horn (2014) was invited from LA Asian Pacific
to the Busan International Film Festival.
Film Festival. His other
Saturday • 10:34 am shorts 90
Katha A young man, Harihar, gets dragged

by his mother to attend an event
Vachak where he finds a storyteller telling

the story of god Shiva’s conflict
India | 2019 | 22 min | English/ with Bhasmasur, a Demon who
Hindi/Kannada gains a powerful boon from the
gods. As Harihar listens to the
story, repressed adolescent desires
surface as he finds an affirmative
voice through mythology.
Director:
Deepak Srinivasan
Deepak Srinivasan is an
artist, designer, theatre
maker and educator
with over 13 years of
experience in critical
media and art practice.
After pursuing acting,
scripting and teaching
film for many years, this
is Deepak’s first attempt
at directing a short-
fiction film.
Kiko Kiko is a blind gay man in his

sixties who makes a living as
Philippines | 2018 | 20 min | Filipino a laundress in a poor coastal
community in Batangas City. He
raises his eight year-old adopted
son, Ton-ton, and supports his lover,
Rex, by doing his neighbors’ laundry.
Things go awry when Rex gets
caught up in a drug scandal.
Director: Jojo Driz
Florencio “Jojo” Driz, than two decades as a

Jr. is a film director fashion designer, was the
and scriptwriter who proprietor of a fashion
started his directing and studio in Batangas
film scripting career City, and dabbled in art
after finishing the 17th direction and costume
Ricky Lee Scriptwriting design. He is co-owner of
Workshop in 2017. Before JMD Productions, a film
his introduction to film production outfit based in
writing and directing, Batangas City.
Jojo worked for more
a shortfilm by
SOFÍA TORRE AND ANDREA ARMENTANO
(The Religious)
MARÍA ONETTO AGUSTÍN PARDELLA

INCAA presents a shotﬁlm by ANDREA ARMENTANO and SOFÍA TORRE / script ANDREA ARMENTANO and SOFÍA TORRE
production ANDREA ARMENTANO, SOFÍA TORRE and AGOSTINA BRYK / director of photography CARLA LUCARELLA
p ro d u c t i o n d e s i g n e r A L E J A N D R A I S L E R / c o s t u m e d e s i g n e r A N D R E A M AT T I O / h a i r & m a k e u p N E S T O R B U R G O S
editor ELIANE KATZ / sound FEDERICO BILLORDO / sound editor & mixing TRES SONIDO
La Religiosa La Religiosa portrays the universe

of a family from a small town in
Argentina | 2018 | 22 min | Spanish rural Argentina—the relationship
of a dominant mother and her son,
with their conflicts and dramas.
Directors: Andrea Armentano and Sofia Torre
Sofía Torre graduated Andrea Armentano is

in Cinema Studies at a Brazilian filmmaker,
the National School of producer and independent
Cinema Experimentation curator. She graduated
and Realization of Buenos in Script and Aesthetics
Aires and is the fourth of Directing at the New
generation of filmmakers School for Drama in New
in her family. York City.
Lack Narges and Mohsen have a hidden

relationship. Their neighbours find
Iran | 2018 | 22 min | Azerbaijani out about it and protest and the
landlord forces them to vacate...
Directors:
Ramin Farzaneh and Parisa Sedaei-Azar
Ramin Farzaneh was

born in 1989 in Ardabil, Parisa Sedaei-Azar was
Iran. He is a director and born in 1989 in Ardabil,
screenplay writer whose Iran. She is an actress,
short film A Special Cut writer and filmmaker. She
of a Situation (2016) was a candidate for Best
has been screened in 3 Supporting Actress at
national festivals and has the Fajr Festival of Iran
won the award for the in 2018.
best innovative film at the
The New Classic Cinema
Film Festival of USA
in 2016.
Lalla Lalla, a trans woman, comes back

from Thailand where she underwent
France | 2018 | 13 min | French an operation. Zacharias, her young
nephew, invites himself over the
evening of her return. Since her
transformation, the family have
distanced themselves from her.
Fascinated by his aunt, Zacharias is
counting on getting closer.
Director: Jose´ Salazar
Originally from He then studied cinema

Venezuela, José Salazar at the Sorbonne. During
began his career in his last year of Masters
cinema as a self-taught in Screenplay, Direction,
artist. He turned to Production, he wrote
experimental video and the scenario for this
launched several projects film inspired by the life
that allowed him to of Lalla, a transsexual
become familiar with woman he knew in the
the filmmaking process. Parisian nightlife world.
Langit Two teenage boys grappling with

the challenges of school bullying
Budak and self-discovery, in a time of

great uncertainty and self doubt.
Biru
Malaysia | 2018 | 23 min | Malay
Director: Lim Kean Hian
Lim Kean Hian majored company and then

in Film at the Shih finished an MFA in
Hsin University at the film making majoring
Department of Radio, in directing at Taipei
TV & Film in Taiwan. He National University of the
has worked in director Arts (TNUA).
Tsai Ming-Liang’s film
Languages Shankar’s family does not know

why he has lost his job. Shankar is
India | 2019 | 30 min | Bengali caught between looking for a new
job and his own contemplation. His
daily life is dotted with financial
crisis and the awkwardness of
being unemployed. Amidst all this,
strange illusions come to him.
Director: Debadrita Bose
Debadrita Bose started self-knowledge. She

her career as a writer, received the QDrishti Film
translator and literary Grant for Shehenaiiya
editor. In cinema, she and completed her
sought a more dynamic fiction, Languages, under
way of self-expression. the said grant. She is
Her first film Aakorsho currently working on her
(Bonding) was centred on next fiction. Debadrita
transgender identities. Her regularly writes on
second film Shehenaiiya cinema for various online
(The Clarinets) is about and print magazines.
MMF A pair of thirty-somethings picks

up a young, attractive black man
Germany | 2017 | 10 min | German/ for a threesome. As they review the
English experience, they probe each other,
masking their own insecurities
with hipster irony and provocation,
including homophobic and racist
jokes. Soon the situation turns very
embarrassing for them.
Director: Leonard Garner
Born 1984 in Berlin, received positive media

Germany, he interned attention, especially
with Detlev Buck. Apart Queen’s Pride (2012)
from making shorts, and Der Baron Ochs auf
he acted on stage, and Lerchenau (2014). He is
fronted Rock & Roll bands now looking for the best
in Manchester, UK. His way to fuse film and
stage plays for Alexander theatre with live music.
Zu Schaumburg-Lippe
May Niranjan visits his dearest friend

Sebi after a long stint. Niranjan, who
India | 2018 | 14 min | Malayalam is a chef, is welcomed by Angel,
Sebi’s wife. What has Niranjan got
to say to Sebi?
Director: Harold
Antony Paulson
Harold Anthony Paulson

is a film direction
student of KR Narayanan
National Institute of
Visual Sciences and Arts
in Kottayam.
Miss Man After being shunned by his

homophobic father for his sexuality
(International Premiere)
and his lover for not being a
India | 2019 | 25 min | Bengali woman, Manob finds himself
travelling to the city for a sex
change operation. However, as he
struggles with his identity, he faces
challenges and questions he may
not be ready to confront yet.
Director: Tathagata Ghosh
Tathagata completed his Senilar Sonket was

Mass Communication published at the Kolkata
and Videography B.Sc International Book Fair
from St. Xavier’s College, 2016. He has directed
Kolkata and then his numerous commercials,
post-graduation degree music videos and written
from Vancouver Film screenplays for several
School in Writing for projects. His last short
Film and Television. He The Demon (Doitto)
also writes for various has traveled to major
web magazines about international film festivals
cinema and filmmaking. and has won 4 awards
His detective novel so far.
Friday • 11:20 am shorts 102
Mort-Bois, During the summer of 1922, in the

heart of the Burgundy region, Jean
a young Genet is at odds with Georges, the

son of the family he grew up with.
Jean Genet Abandoned at birth by his mother,

the teen is becoming aware of
his differences and his rebellion.
Based on historical accounts and
letters written by his mother to
Child Services, Mort-Bois is a loose
adaptation of the childhood of
writer Jean Genet.
Directors:
´ ´ Labonde and
Frederic
´ ´ Bonnet
Frederic
Frédéric Labonde and

Frédéric Bonnet live and
work in Paris. For several
years, they have directed
films that have been
featured at international
festivals. Mort-Bois is
their first co-production.
Mud Mud Months after the divorce, Kumar

shows up with bags at his ex-wife’s
Ke Na Dekh door. She lives with her girlfriend
who happens to be Kumar’s best
India | 2019 | 22 min | Hinglish friend. Here is your classic triangle
with a queer twist.
Directors: Mujeer Pasha and Veena Kulkarni
Mujeer Pasha, in his own Veena is a teacher, a

words, is a 29-year old filmmaker, entrepreneur,
pseudo-intellectual person godmother, cat-parent...
living in Bangalore. And and in all of this, she tells
thinks he is a cannon stories, that’s what she’s
(pun totally intended, but best known for! She’s a
violence). On a serious powerful show runner
note, it’s quite a metaphor! and has put together
Well, film-making has many successes in her
been a major form of long, divergent career.
his expression for the Anything created by
past 6 years. Storytelling Veena tends to evoke love,
through text, visuals and free thinking and hope...
sound is his super-human much like the child-like
power. This is how he optimist she is herself.
thinks he brings value With her neon socks and
and drives people to see warm smile, she rules the
things differently. Ahem! stage and the hearts of
her loved ones.
Night At a supermarket, Magno watches

over boys with backpacks as they
Watch go along the corridors. Meanwhile,

the night drags on slowly for
(International Premiere) Bismarck, a cashier.
~ Victor Borges
Director: Joao
Born in 1995 in Rio Association (ABC), for

de Janeiro, João his work on the short film
Victor Borges is an Cravo, Lírio e Rosa by
undergraduate in Film Maju de Paiva. He’s also
and Cinema Studies been the cinematographer
at Fluminense Federal of various award
University. In 2018, winning short films.
he was awarded His first fiction script
Best Student Film Vigia was awarded Best
Cinematographer of the Script by the 2017 Sal
Year by the Brazilian Grosso Award.
Cinematography
Only What Teenagers Laura and Fabio meet

at a skate park and their friendship
You Need blossoms into something deeper.
But when Laura disappears without
To Know a word, Fabio tracks her down to
uncover the reason why.
About Me
Director: Maria Augusta V. Nunes

Partner at “NoveloFilmes”, Writer of TV show Johnny
a visual content company Fever (winner of the “FSA”
based in Florianópolis, Development Award),
Brazil. Writer of the and the feature film The
shorts Make do with what Duty, in coproduction
(Rio International Short with Haddock Films
Film Festival) and Golden (Argentina). She also has
Arrow Wrestling Club a master and a doctorate
(São Paulo International degree in Literature.
Short Film Festival).
Pashi In a remote Himachali Village,

when his mom’s handsome friend
India | 2017 | 32 min | Pahari unexpectedly shows up, a teenage
boy is swept in a whirlwind of
desire and vivid fantasy. As he
struggles to rein in his strong
impulses, he learns about pashi, an
ancient technique of trapping birds,
and begins to practice it. Winner
of 7 International Awards and
worldwide critical acclaim, Pashi is
a heartbreaking love story.
Director:
Siddharth Chauhan
Siddharth Chauhan is an
independent filmmaker
based in Shimla whose
work has been screened
around the world. He has
directed two previous
shorts – Boys Don’t Wear
Nailpolish (2015) and
Papa (2015).
Reality Reality Fragment 160921 follows

two people in their process of
Fragment reality-curation. They create

their own spaces against and via
160921 understandings of distance, as

they go through the motions of
growing themselves by growing
UK/USA/Sweden | 2018 | 14 min |
their universes.
English/Mandarin
Directors: Qigemu (Jasmine Lin + April Lin)

七个木Qigemu七個木 is a with bodies, information
duo consisting of lovers and energies, and how
April Lin and Jasmine Lin these are conceptualized
exploring the interstices in the internet age.
of movement, visual Qigemu is committed to
media, identity, and the broadening what it means
global Asian diaspora to be queer and Asian,
as, respectively, Chinese- constructing alternative
Swedish and Taiwanese- narratives of existence
American. Using the grounded in un-learning
potential of this hybrid and un-teaching
space, Qigemu engages exclusionary ways of
in conversations dealing movement and existence.
Reinaldo's In 1927, Reinaldo Ferreira, a well-

known journalist and writer who
Motifs published under the pen name

‘Repórter X’, founded the cinema
Portugal | 2018 | 9 min | Silent production company Repórter X
Film, through which he directed
four films that same year. Among
them are O Táxi no. 9297 and Rita
ou Rito?, where homosexuality,
transvestism and drug use feature
explicitly in Portuguese cinema
for the first time. This film is an
audiovisual essay that plays with
a series of recurrent motifs in
Reinaldo Ferreira’s cinematic work
in a manner that is playful and
not reverential.
Director: Ricardo Vieira Lisboa
Ricardo Vieira the history of Portuguese

Lisboa works as a film and film preservation
film programmer and restoration. As a
for IndieLisboa - director, he has produced
International Film Festival and directed experimental
and Reverso Festival, short films and video
and occasionally as a essays such as Le métro,
curator for the Calouste Vieira da Silva (2016),
Gulbenkian Foundation. Children, Madonna
He is a film critic for and Child, Death and
À Pala de Walsh, a Transfiguration (2016)
website he co-edits and Cigarro Azul (2017),
and co-founded. He has which have played in
developed several papers national and international
and academic articles on film festivals.
Selma Selma is a trans woman who built

her life away from the family.
After The One day she gets a call to go to

her elderly mother, who suffers
Rain from Alzheimer’s and needs

treatment. In this encounter, lost
in confused memories, the two
women remember forgotten pains
and desires, and revisit lost guilt
and affection.
Director: Loli Menezes
Filmmaker, producer films and TV series. She’s

and videographer, the co- founder of Vinyl
Loli Menezes studied Films, a produce company
cinema, video and TV at of Santa Catarina, where
university UNISUL and she works as PR, Project
has worked as director Manager and Social
and producer, for short Media Coordinator.
Snail Three young Iranian boys along

with a smuggler are clandestinely
Iran | 2017 | 11 min | Kurdish smuggling across the Iran-Turkey
and Persian border. The smuggler only passes
masculine people through the
border. In the middle, he has a
sudden realization.
Director:
Mohammad
Towrivarian
Mohammed Towrivarian
was born in Iran in 1992
in Sanandaj City in the
West of Iran.
Splendid A simple love story between a

bored bumper car owner and a
Case of furry. Sometimes love makes us

forget…
Doubt
Austria | 2018 | 4 min | No dialogue
Director: Daniel Moshel
Daniel Moshel was users and video bloggers

born in Germany and has seen 300 festivals
currently he lives and screenings (including
works in Vienna, Austria. Sundance) and has won
Login2Life (2011) was more than 30 awards.
his first feature length MeTube2 launched its
documentary. His recent career at the Sundance
project Metube (www. Film Festival 2016 and
metube.at), a music video became as successful as
homage to thousands the prequel. Consequently
of ambitious YouTube MeTube 3 is on its way.
The By taking Jean Genet’s play The

Maids as a point of departure,
Housemaids the film is a journey through the
mind space of two sisters, working
India | 2018 | 23 min | English as housemaids for now an old
upper class vegetative Madame.
The sisters attempt to fill the void
of their mostly curtailed life by
playing ritualistic games - adorning
each other in costume, class,
language and behavior - enacting a
freedom they never feel.
Director: Asawari Jagushte
Asawari Jagushte carved Asawari has directed

a path in filmmaking digital films & social
by assisting on various films for last three years.
commercials & a feature. Asawari also collaborates
She then studied her as a filmmaker with
Masters at The London artists of different
Film School followed backgrounds. Her work
by another Masters in mostly falls in between
Experimental Film at performance, photography
Kingston University. and films.
Things Things Break In is an intimate

portrait of independence and love.
Break In Ida and Rosa work on a farm

to support their families during
USA | 2017 | 7 min | English wartime. Things Break In drops
us invites us to see what might
happen when two women in 1940
are required to work together
in privacy.
Director: Tess Harrison
Tess Harrison is an others. Tess’s music video

award-winning filmmaker for Minke premiered on
and actress based in LA. Harper’s Bazaar in August
She wrote, directed and 2018. Other music video
starred in her debut short credits include two videos
film It’s Perfect Here for X Ambassadors’
which received the Best forthcoming record,
Narrative Short Award JOYFUl and Don’t Stay
at the Napa Valley Film both of which have over
Festival in 2015 and one million views.
screened at numerous
U Ushacha Usha, a single mother who works as

a farm labourer in rural India, finds
herself drawn to a female teacher
(U for Usha) at the local primary school, in
India | 2019 | 22 min | Marathi ways she never knew possible. This
attraction plays an important part
in firing her passion to read and
write,and she hopes to be as good
as the teacher.
Director: Rohan Parashuram Kanawade
After completing a In 2017 his short

diploma in Interior Khidkee got selected
Designing, Rohan in Indian Panorama of
Kanawade spent as much IFFI, Goa. Impressed
time as possible honing by his work, mythology
his storytelling craft, writer Devdutt Pattanaik
despite having no formal extended his financial
training in filmmaking. In support to Rohan’s
2010 he left his full-time next short U Ushacha,
job and invested his time which he completed in
in writing and direction. mid-January 2019.
Holding You Close
The BQFF Art Exhibition
Holding You Close
The BQFF Art Exhibition
August 1-4, Max Mueller Bhavan • 10am – 9pm.
The point of departure of this year’s exhibition – Holding You Close –

comes from an impulse to not just document our community but rather to
showcase artists from our community, who comment on our individual and
collective fashionings and fantasies by living with and among us.
These artists seem to make their work through the people they meet or
not, people they encounter in person or virtually through online dating
sites, or by choosing to be in their homes and find ways of occupying their
time. By engaging with these multiple modes of making, they render time
visible and offer us a sense of what it means to occupy a queer-time and a
queer space.1
What does that mean? Well, queer-time is the time that is spent outside
of frameworks that we’re expected to live by; it is time outside of family,
outside of the things wanted of us, outside of how long we are going to
live. This is time that is precarious, cherished and longed for. This is time
spent cruising, spent labouring over making and unmaking, time spent in
solitude, time spent dressing up or down, time spent on a bad date or over
a broken heart.
And queer space is the space we make within our homes, space that’s
made by holding hands, space that comes alive with gossip, space for
delighting, for dancing, for drifting.
The three artists in this show, we hope make you pause and think: What
does it mean for you to live, love and luxuriate within this queer-time
and queer-space? Have you carved out a queer-time and queer-space for
yourself?
Text: Arshad Hakim + Joshua Muyiwa
1 “Queer time” is a term for those specific models of temporality that emerge
within postmodernism Once one leaves the temporal frames of bourgeois reproduc
tion and family, longevity, risk/safety, and inheritance. “Queer space” refers to the
place-making practices within postmodernism in which queer people engage and it
also describes the new understandings of space enabled by the production of queer
counterpublics.”
Judith Halberstam, In a Queer Time and Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural
Lives (New York: New York University Press, 2005).
121
Drawing from Memory

Aryakrishnan R.
Fleeting glances, fleeting touches. As a queer body, the significance

of a moment seems to take place in the passing. Peripheral looks
become a world unto itself, one fertile for life and love. This world
constitutes the ecstatic, the communal and the solitary. In being able
to create these worlds, we’re able to say: I have seen you. I recognise
you. I love you. Love here is not an adjective but a verb. Love is an
action, it is kindness and care, it isn’t always sexual or filial but it can
be.
Aryakrishnan’s drawings mine these moments, and they swap

formality for a style and medium that registers, remembers and
records these people they have met with visceral affection and tacit
tenderness. In looking at their drawings, you are bound to think:
Have I seen this person? Do I know someone who stands like this?
Why can’t I drop the feeling I recognise this person? In allowing
for these associations, Aryankrishnan’s drawings open us up to our
own memories of these bodies we’ve known, cared for, fought with,
surrounded ourselves with and desired. In our queer worlds, you don’t
ever die because you are never forgotten.
Text: Arshad Hakim + Joshua Muyiwa
Aryakrishnan R is an ongoing project Sweet

artist, queer activist and Maria Monument is a
curator based in Cochin monument for Maria,
and New Delhi. They a transgender activist
completed their MA in and performer who was
Visual Arts from the murdered in 2012 in
School of Culture and Kerala. The project was
Creative Expressions, showcased most recently
Ambedkar University at the Kochi-Muziris
(Delhi) in 2014. Their Biennale 2018.
Holding You Close : THE BQFF ART EXHIBITION 122
The Future Is Not My Gender

Renuka Rajiv
I have been stitching over the last ten years or more. It began on
t-shirts with some rough applique. About 6 years ago, there was
a desire for that to grow out of the t-shirt, specifically inspired by
seeing koudhis and kantha work. I remember wanting to make a large
piece on black fabric with faces on it, but it never happened. Instead
many small fragments emerged, and I just installed them together
like a blanket on a wall. So it’s a funny happiness that the black piece
with faces happened a few years later because of the chance to make
and show work at HomeSweetHome, Bangalore. It took a couple of
months to make while watching a lot of Parks and Recreation. This
led to more works though not as big. The works I am sharing here are
from the last three years or so.
Renuka Rajiv has had an playing with fabric and

interest in making things paper. Most themes and
since childhood, exploring content in their work is
drawing, paper mache, personal, which includes
tie-dye and stitching. the compulsion towards
During their school years, the hand-made. Their
they took part in different work inhabits a space
creative events. After that that accommodates the
they studied digital video imaginative, observational
production at Srishti and autobiographical. The
School of Art, Design and objective is to explore
Technology in Bangalore communication that is not
and a Bachelor of Fine centered around verbal
Arts (with Honours) expression, and to jump
majoring in printmaking around in an expanded
at Victorian College of playground. Since 2012,
Art, Melbourne. Since they have been exhibiting
then, their work has regularly in group and
reconnected with the solo shows.
childhood interests of
Holding You Close : THE BQFF ART EXHIBITION 123
It has the appearance of a deliberate transgression

Sandip Kuriakose
Taking the portrait as a central theme in visualising (other)

sexualities, collage and drawing is used to re-conceptualise
photographs taken off Planet Romeo, a popular gay dating website
in India. Men are able to perform versions of their masculinities in
ways that are sometimes not possible in their daily lives, thus living
through parallel identities in varied ways, many of which seems
constructed and re-created to fit their own ideas of a ‘perfect’ kind
of masculinity. These distorted images seem to mirror the idea of
the original image that has been put up in the first place; always
seemingly contradictory.
Sandip Kuriakose FotoFest International

graduated with an MVA 2018 Biennial Central
(Painting) from MS Exhibition INDIA
University, Baroda (2014) - Contemporary
and a BFA (Painting) Photographic and New
from the College of Art, Media Art, Houston;
New Delhi. The primary Regimes of Truth, Gati
focus of his work has Dance Forum, New Delhi;
been an examination The 6th European Month
of power structures, of Photography, Das Foto
that is based in the Image Factory, Berlin;
ethnographic, archival Art For Young Collectors,
and biographical. His Galerie Mirchandani +
primary materials are Steinruecke, Mumbai;
photography, text and and United Art Fair, New
publications. Shows Delhi among others.
include Listening as Residencies include Clark
Practice, Gallery MMB House Initiative (2018),
Goethe-Institut / Max CONA Foundation (2018),
Mueller Bhavan, Mumbai TIFA Working Studios
(upcoming); In Search (2018) and the Summer
of Baba Singh, UCI, Residency Program,
California; Against the School of Visual Arts
Order Of, Clark House (2013). He lives and
Initiative, Mumbai; works in New Delhi.
Panels
PANELS 126
Panel I :
How To Make A
Queer Image
Saturday, 3rd August 2019 • 6:50 – 7:35 pm
Max Mueller Bhavan
What is a queer image, and how does one make

it, remake it, and negotiate with it? How do we
see it and how do others?
Moderator: Shai Heredia
Panellists: Priya Sen, Debalina, Satya Nagpaul,

Shilpi Gulati, Jainendra Dost
Shai Heredia is a filmmaker and Satya Rai Nagpaul is an award-winning

curator of film art. In 2003, she founded cinematographer and a person of trans
Experimenta, an international festival of masculine experience. He has shot avant
moving image art. She lives in Bangalore garde cinema in the Punjabi language -
and teaches at the Srishti Institute of Anhey Ghode Da Daan [National Award,
Art, Design and Technology. 2011], Chauthi Koot [In Competition
& World Premier: Un Certain Regard,
Festival De Cannes, 2015; Filmfare 2017].
His most prominent contribution to
queer cinema is the film Aligarh [Busan
and BFI, 2015]. He founded Sampoorna,
a network of trans and (now) intersex
inclusive Indians in the late 90s.
For bios of other panellists, please refer to the film list

section of the brochure.
PANELS 127
Panel II :
The Language
of Films
Sunday, 4th August 2019 • 11 am – 12 pm
Max Mueller Bhavan
Who talks and who listens? What is the

language of cinema? Who are its fluent speakers
and who needs translation?
Moderator: Gee Imaan Semmalar
Panellists: Mujeer Pasha, Unnikrishnan Avala and

Crew, Christy Raj, Rohan Kanwade, Manoj Thorat
Gee Imaan Semmalar is a trans activist,

film maker and theatre artist and a big
time fanboy of BQFF.
For bios of other panellists, please refer to the film list

section of the brochure.
Performances
130
What’s a queer film festival without drama? Emotions!
Performances? This year, our 10th anniversary special
features three superb evening of music and dance,
theatre, spoken word and poetry.
The BQFF Curtain Raiser:

An Evening of Music and Dance
B Manjamma Jogathi and Troupe
Wednesday, 31st July 2019 • 6:30 – 8:30 PM

Bangalore International Centre
B Manjamma Jogathi and her troupe are one of the last Jogathi
groups – trans-women followers and disciples of Goddess Yellamma –
who still practice and perform the traditional folk music and dance.
Manjamma, with her troupe, will bring to the stage short snippets of
the play Yellammanata interspersed with Chowdki Pada – songs that
trace the life and glory of Goddess Yellamma, using a pair of folk
instruments called the Shruthi and Chowdki. The performance will
end with Jogathi Nrithya, a dance practised by this community, where
they dance while perfectly balancing pots – decorated with Yellamma
symbols and filled with water – on their heads.
B Manjamma is a Karnataka Rajyotsava

awardee, Sandesha awardee and is a member
of the Karnataka Folklore Academy. She lives
in Mariyammanahalli, a small town in North
Karnataka with a few jogathis, adopted children
and several animals. She is revered as a
matriarch of her community.
performances 131
Nanna Dwani/Enathu Kural –

A One-Act Play In Kannada and Tamil
A Revathi
Friday, 2nd August 2019 • 6:00 – 7:00 PM

Alliance Francaise de Bangalore
Enathu Kural/Nanna Dwani – which translates as my voice, or I Have

A Voice – is a one act play by writer, theatre artiste and trans rights
activist A Revathi.
Based on a dramatised version of her autobiography, I Have A

Voice charts the life of Revathi, from meeting and becoming a
member of the trans women commune in Dindigul, finding a mentor
and protector, and later mother, in the form of an elder from the
community, and later herself becoming a mother to other trans
women, and uniquely, to trans men too. Revathi talks about the
oppression she faced from society, doing the work that trans women
are forced to, as well as police violence, ostracisation. But it isn’t all
dark, because Revathi also found love and acceptance.
The performance, which was conceptualised by Revathi with the

assistance of theatre director Mangai, ends with a poem called ‘Kuri
Aruthen’ by Kalki, Revathi’s daughter.
A Revathi has written many books,

including Unarvum Uruvamum
(2004), The Truth About Me: A
Hijra Life Story (2010) which was
later published in Tamil as Vellai
Mozhi (2011) and A Revathi: A
Life In Trans Activism (2016). She
won the Canadian Tamil Literary
Garden Memorial Prize for her book
Unarvum Uruvamum.
performances 132
An Evening Of Poetry & Book Launch

Hoshang Merchant, Vikramaditya Sahai, Namita Aavriti
and Joshua Muyiwa
Sunday, 4th August 2019 • 6:00 – 7:00 PM

Goethe Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan
Listen to four poets talk about life, love, lust and loss,
about queerness and not queerness, about that special
place which is the fount of words and poetry.
Hoshang Merchant is one of the Namita Aavriti is a writer. She divides

country’s foremost poets, having been her time between Bengaluru in India and
published since 1989. His first book the many worlds in books and movies.
Flower To Flame was soon followed She has written on law, cinema, internet,
by Stone to Fruit and many more archives, sexuality, technology, feminism,
collections of poetry. He is credited with family. She is currently the global
editing Yaarana, the country’s first gay English language editor for GenderIT.org
anthology. He is a teacher, and a critic and one of the co-directors of BQFF.
as well. His latest book, The Gay Icons
Of India is just out and will be launched
at the BQFF.
Vikramaditya Sahai is a writer, poet Joshua Muyiwa is a Bangalore-based

and academic, they have been primarily poet, writer and columnist. He is also
focussed on understanding queer one of the co-directors of BQFF.
politics. They live and work in Delhi.
Ten Years of Gratitude
First off we’d like to offer the biggest thanks to both the Goethe-
Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan (GI/MMB) and Alliance Française de
Bangalore for being our venue partners, collaborators, supporters and
friends these last ten years. They have graciously and generously
offered the festival a home and been invested in keeping it running,
offering it films, giving it discounts and joined in on our raucous fun,
and we truly appreciate the relationship we have with them.
This year we thank Dr. Claus Heimes, Maureen Gonsalves and Amal
Jose at GI/MMB, for partnering with us in this mad caper yet again.
Maureen, specially, for her unstinting support, goodwill and her ability
to navigate crises without batting an eyelid.
At AFB Dr. Philippe Libersa and Anjana Ramesh, Joseph, Aslam and
Kantha Raj, for rekindling our partnership and for all of their help and
support in making the festival a four-day gala in its tenth year.
We also thank all the prior directors of both AFB and GI/MMB for
helping build this history for the festival. Also cultural directors and
interns at both institutions, especially Prutha Narke at AFB for being
such a valiant supporter. We must also thank the technical staff at
both venues - Kantha Raj, Aslam and Amal Jose at MMB, who bear
our invasion into their space and are always alert to our needs.
Our other venue collaborators and supporters, 1 ShanthiRoad

and Shoonya, for hosting events in past years and adding to the
queerness of it all. This year’s new venue collaborator, the Bangalore
International Centre, and Raghu Tenkayala, for hosting our 10th
anniversary curtain raiser.
135
Film
We offer our deepest gratitude to all the filmmakers who have

submitted their films to us over ten years, it’s been a fabulous ride
of watching, previewing, wanting to screen again, critiquing, crying,
laughing, screaming, hating and wanting! Good cinema is at the heart
of the festival and we have loved your films and the fact that you
sent them to us! Some of you are joining us this year and some are
far away but we hope to have you at the festival in our utopian future!
All our curators in the past: John Badalu (Q! Festival and now
producer, whom we will bring to BQFF soon!), Shai Heredia
(Experimenta), Anna Helme and Kelli Jean Drinkwater (Rabid
Tripped-out Psychedelic Lesbian Koalas), Sharon Jackson (Out in
Africa) & Thomas Waugh (two years in a row!), for the amazing
packages that the festival has been lucky to include. Artist and writer
Richard Fung, whose video art package was a truly beautiful part of
our 2017 festival.
Those who have been members of our jury, in the years in which we
had a competition section.
Everyone who offered and agreed to make our endearing festival

films through the years!
Rumi Harish, Sunil Mohan, Ratheesh Radhakrishnan and Renjini

Krishnan, who’ve helped us source and screen many Indian films that
we otherwise might have missed. Margot Cohen and Lyle Pearson, for
their yearly support in finding films, promoting films we screen at
other festivals and linking us with festivals and filmmakers. Tejaswini
Niranjana and Naifei Ding, for introducing us to filmmakers from
Taiwan and Hong Kong and for showing their support in unnameable
ways. We also thank everyone else who has put us in touch with
filmmakers, festivals and curators in the last ten years (the list is too
long for this page!)
136
This year our filmy thanks go out to…
Debalina, Christy Raj, Jainendra Dost, Manoj Thorat, Mujeer Pasha,

Priya Sen, Rohan Kanawade, Satya Rai Nagpaul, Shilpi Gulati and
Unnikrishnan Avala and his team, for being our filmmaker panelists
and adding considerably to the frisson the festival generates with
their ideas and stories on queer filmmaking.
Gee Imaan Semmalar and Shai Heredia for consenting to moderate

the panels, bringing a host of insights to bear on the films, and doing
it all in full style!
Aarthi Parthasarathy, filmmaker, webcomic creator, writer and artist,

who’s made our tenth anniversary festival film!
Simon Napier-Bell, who agreed to fly down from the UK to talk about
his film and his long history of working in the music industry. We’re
sorry he couldn’t make it this time, but the show’s not over yet!
Jiz Lee, for finding us delicious and ground-breaking erotic films and
introducing us to their makers.
Sajitha and Gee, for putting us in touch with Unnikrishna Avala, and
making it possible for us to screen Udalaazham.
John Badalu, for sending us filmmaker contacts this year as well! It’s
because of you that we manage to represent East and Southeast Asia
in the festival!
Fatrick Tabada and Rae Red, Maria Wincess and Bianca, for the
delightful Chedeng and Apple. Arvind Narrain for putting us in touch.
Leon Le, for consenting to the screening of the rompy Song Lang.
Shilpi Gulati and Jainendra Dost, for their beautiful film Naach
Bhikhari Naach.
Jane Yao, David Lorenz, Maria Vera and Kino Rebelde, for being
considerate and friendly producers and distributors and making many
137
wonderful screenings possible.

Performance & Art
Not in any way less adored, we have to thank all the pervy, touching,
politically astute performers and artists who have sung, spoken, read
and exhibited their work at BQFF these last ten years, you have made
sure the festival caters to all kinds of love for all forms of art and
craft. A special shout out to The Pink Divas for setting our stage on
fire so many times! And a special thanks to Akshay Mahajan, who’s
curated multiple photo exhibits purely from an affinity with the queer
image.
For BQFF 2019 we thank...
B Manjamma Jogathi & Troupe, Hoshang Merchant, Revathi A and

Vikramaditya Sahai, for travelling long and short distances to attend
the festival and perform, discuss and read their work. You are truly a
mind-bending lot!
Our artists Aryan Ramakrishnan, Renuka Rajiv & Sandip Kuriakose,

for their exhibitions that open out the world through image, gesture
and stroke. Arshad Hakim for working on the exhibition note and for
his swift and dependable assistance in making the exhibition happen.
Shilpa Mudbi and the Urban Folk Project, for helping us invite and
introduce Manjamma and the other performers.
Design, Donation and Support
Through the years a whole host of people have provided the legs,
hands, eyes, heart and bank balance that the festival has needed
to keep going. Even if a thousand films came in every year the
festival wouldn’t run without our supporters, in the form of designers,
sponsors, donors and volunteers! There are too many of you to thank
and you know who you are and we hope you’ll always have our backs!
We thank everyone who’s sponsored material, brochures, food at
events, parties; everyone who’s donated their hard earned money; and
all the volunteers who’ve donated their time in the last decade!
138
We’d like to specially mention Good As You (GAY), WHaQ and All
Sorts of Queer (ASQ) (Mari Eva Mendes, Rohini Malur, Sumitra
Sunder, Abhishek Agarwal, Prasoon Joshi, Krithika Kris, Vidya Pai and
many many others), for the time, energy and money spent through
the years in keeping the festival on its feet, through co-hosting,
volunteering, donation drives and event coordination, and the
enthusiasm and love the festival has been witness to!
This year a shout out to…
Samvada, the organisation that hosted our AJWS travel grant for the
filmmakers and artists, without which we would not have had such
splendid panels and performances this year - specially Anita Ratnam
(ED) and Antony Varghese and Poornima S (Accounts department).
Devashri Mukherjee, from AJWS.
Manish Gaur of The Institute of Baking and Cake Art & Priyank
Sukanand of Naidu & Sons, for showering cupcakes, sandwiches
and samosas on the garage sale, the volunteers and organisers
were grateful!
Designer Roshan Shakeel for accommodating all our eccentric

demands and ensuring that this bestially stylish 10th anniversary
brochure gets released on time. We raise our beaks, crests and horns
to you! A shout out to Kevin Mathews, for changing the brochure
game for us two years ago.
Radhika Timbadia and Champaca Bookstore, Library and Cafe, for

the charming pop-up book store that brought the world of books
back into BQFF.
Volunteers at both the garage sale and the festival, we couldn’t have
done either of these without you sweating it out with us, and we’re
deeply grateful for your support and time. Please come back next
year! Meow to you!
Donors: First, those who donated their reusable items generously for
the garage sale, we’ve never had such an enthusiastic response and
the proceeds from the sale eased our financial worries considerably!
139
Second, all those who donated money this year to ensure that the
festival is kept on its feet - it’s because of you that we keep ourselves
independent and community-centred year after year!
John, at the National Printing Press, whose rapid velocity work

and ability to accommodate our printing deadlines invokes our
fullest thanks.
Last but never least, our audience, those who have been coming year
after year, those who show up for the first film of the day, those who
immerse themselves in the closing films, those who hoot and cry and
shout and laugh and stay silent, those who come for good cinema and
art and don’t mind the crowds and the sweat and the smells and the
tech snags (or come because of these!). The festival hearts you.
Film Contacts
2015 Chedeng and Apple

Eluna R. Cepeda Fatrick Tabada
astrobatmon@gmail.com fatrickt@gmail.com
A Safe Person to Talk to Cinderella

Navdeep Sharma Mehdi Aghajani
ridhima@psbt.org atozinema@gmail.com
A Woman Is A Woman Dante vs Mohammed Ali

Maisy Goosy Suen Marc Wagenaar
mimiwong3000@gmail.com nelson@augohr.de
An Abstract El Niño Que Quería Volar

Manoj Thorat Jorge Muriel
thorat.manoj1@gmail.com info@offecam.com
Birds of Paradise Eli - A Portrait

Rahul Sudha Mahesh Lumen Nguyen
rahulmmahesh@gmail.com nelson@augohr.de
Birthday Estigma
Shine Louise Houston David Velduque
jiz@pinkwhite.biz info@selectedfilms.com
Breaking Out! Falling

Heshvanth Gurukul Tang Kang Sheng
findheshvanthhere@gmail.com tang.kang.shen@gmail.com
Breakup in 9 Scenes Finding Prayers

Leil Zahra Mortada Nilay Samiran Nandi
leilzahra@riseup.net nilay.s.nandi@gmail.com
Breathe Flora
Anushka Shivdasani Rovshen and Chaerin Im
Madhuri Mohindar nelson@augohr.de
ridhima@psbt.org
Framing Agnes
Came The Wave Chase Joynt
Benjamin Busnel chase.joynt@gmail.com
contact@easytigerfilms.fr
141
Hands and Wings Lack

Sungbin Byun Ramin Farzaneh and Parisa Sedaei-Azar
bsb9104@naver.com raminfarzaneh1368@gmail.com
I’m Moshanty. Do You Love Me? Lalla

Tim Wolff José Salazar
timwolffhouse@yahoo.com jsalazar.films@gmail.com
I’m Not There Langit Budak Biru

Ajita Banerjie Lim Kean Hian
ridhima@psbt.org keanhian@gmail.com
Ishq, Dosti and All That Languages

Rituparna Borah, Srishti Lakhera, Debadrita Bose
Bhamati Sivapalan, Ritambhara Mehta debadrita.bose@gmail.com
ridhima@psbt.org
Lupah Sug
Katha Vachak Rhadem Camlian Morados
Deepak Srinivasan themuslimgayguy@gmail.com
deep.srin@gmail.com
MMF
Kiko Leonard Garner
Jojo Driz nelson@augohr.de
janinagacosta@gmail.com
May
La Flaca (The Bony Lady) Harold Antony Paulson
Adriana Barbosa and Thiago Zanato haroldantonypaulson@gmail.com
adrisbarbosa@gmail.com
Megg - The Margin Who Migrate to
La Primavera Trans the Centre
Juan David Larissa Nepomuceno and Eduardo
juanbidelgrow@hotmail.com Sanches
larissanpmoreira@gmail.com
La Religiosa
Sofía Torre and Andrea Armentano Meili
armentanoandrea@gmail.com Zhou Zhou
jane@fortissimofilms.com
La sociologue et l’ourson
Mathias Théry, Étienne Chaillou
culture.bangalore@afindia.org
FILM CONTACTS 142
Miss Man Pashi

Tathagata Ghosh Siddharth Chauhan
tathagata314@gmail.com siddharthchauhan1234@gmail.com
Mort-Bois, a young Jean Genet Please Mind The Gap

Frédéric Labonde and Frédéric Bonnet Mitali Trivedi and Gagandeep Singh
frederic.labonde@free.fr mitali.trivedi88@gmail.com
Mud Mud Ke Na Dekh Reality Fragment 160921

Mujeer Pasha Qigemu Lin
mujeerpashav1@gmail.com qigemu@gmail.com
Naach Bhikhari Naach Reinaldo’s Motifs

Shilpi Gulati and Jainendra Dost Ricardo Vieira Lisboa
shilpi.gulati1@gmail.com rmpvlx@gmail.com
Night Watch Selma after the rain

João Victor Borges Loli Menezes
wiliamdoc@gmail.com lolimenezes@gmail.com
Njan Sanjo El Silencio Es Un Cuerpo Que Cae

Jijo Kuriakose (Silence is a Falling Body)
jijokuriakose2000@gmail.com Agustina Comedi
produccion@kinorebelde.com
No Box For Me. An Intersex Story
Floriane Devigne Snail
contact@andanafilms.com Mohammad Towrivarian
mohammadt.1371@yahoo.com
Nocturama
Bertrand Bonello Song Lang
culture.bangalore@afindia.org (AFB) Leon Le
leonqle@gmail.com
Only What You Need To Know About Me
Maria Augusta V. Nunes Splendid Case of Doubt
maria@novelofilmes.com.br Daniel Moshel
nelson@augohr.de
Our Stories Our Journeys
Christy Raj The Housemaids
anekatrust@gmail.com Asawari Jagushte
jagushteasawari@gmail.com
FILM CONTACTS 143
Things Break In
Tess Harrison
nelson@augohr.de
Ti Gars (One of the Guys)

Doris Buttignol
larduxfestival@hotmail.fr
Tin Satyi ... (In Fact ...)

Debalina
debaulicfilms@gmail.com
Transfinite
Neelu Bhuman
filmsofneelu@gmail.com
U Ushacha
Rohan Kanawade
darkkurves@gmail.com
Udalaazham
Unnikrishnan Avala
unnikrishnanavala@gmail.com
Un Homme Mon Fils

Florent Gouelou
culture.bangalore@afindia.org
Film packages courtesy
Venue Partners
bqff.in
blrqueerfilmfest@gmail.com

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THE BANGALORE th

We’ve turned ten! And we didn’t make it so far on our own.

One of the several perks of being a volunteer-run, community-

From the first public film festival called ‘Bangalored’, held

A question that everyone involved with the festival asks at its

61 Public Service Broadcasting

119 Holding You Close: The BQFF

134 Ten Years of Gratitude

140 Film Contacts

10 : 30 AM Ti Gars (One of the Guys)

12 : 10 PM Megg - The Margin who Migrate to the Center

12 : 55 PM Ishq, Dosti and All That

2 : 00 PM I’m Moshanty. Do You Love Me?

4 : 22 PM I’m Not There

4 : 35 PM Un Homme Mon Fils

5 : 56 PM Only What You Need to Know About Me

6 : 11 PM A Safe Person to Talk to

10 : 00 AM No Box For Me. An Intersex Story

11 : 20 AM Mort-Bois, a young Jean Genet

11 : 49 AM Zara Nazar Utha Ke Dekho

12 : 57 PM Splendid Case of Doubt

2 : 15 PM Nján Sánjo (I’m Sánjo)

2 : 30 PM Reality Fragment 160921

2 : 45 PM La Flaca (The Bony Lady)

3 : 05 PM Came The Wave

4 : 08 PM Our Stories Our Journeys

4 : 40 PM Si Chedeng at si Apple (Chedeng and Apple)

7 : 00 PM Yeh Freedom Life / This Freedom Life

10 : 57 AM Please Mind The Gap

2 : 47 PM Miss Man [International Premiere]

3 : 12 PM Naach Bhikhari Naach

7 : 35 PM Dante vs Mohammed Ali

8 : 04 PM Selma After The Rain

9 : 00 PM El Silencio Es Un Cuerpo Que Cae (Silence is a

12 : 10 PM Tin Satyi ... (In Fact ...)

2 : 00 PM Mud Mud Ke Na Dekh

2 : 21 PM Langit Budak Biru

3 : 07 PM Hands and Wings

7 : 10 PM U Ushacha (U for Usha)

7 : 55 PM Night Watch [International Premiere]

8 : 18 PM El niño que quería volar

A Woman Is A Woman Is A Woman features the

A Woman Yu and Chiu Ling Fung. Sung Chi

Maisy Goosy Suen is a

Si Chedeng In the wake of her husband’s death,

at si Apple of the closet. Her best friend Apple,

Directors: Rae Red

Rae Red co-wrote and

Meili Meili is an ill-fated girl. She was

Director: Zhou Zhou

Zhou Zhou has been a

Song Lang It’s 1980s in Saigon. Linh Phung

Writer/director/actor (2012) that he wrote

Transfinite Transfinite is a sci-fi omnibus

Director: Neelu Bhuman

Neelu is an independent FU377 (2014) has won

Udalaazham Gulikan, born and brought up as a

Director: Unnikrishnan Avala

Unnikrishnan Avala is a coveted awards given by

I'm I’m Moshanty. Do You Love Me?

Moshanty. South Pacific recording artist and

Do You Moses Moshanty Tau and the

Love Me? New Guinea.

Papua New Guinea | 2018 | 1 hr 12