Margarita with a straw that is not straight

Cinemascope, May '15
By Niladri R. Chatterjee

One of the first things one realizes after even a casual acquaintance with feminism is that in a patriarchal society the male body is constantly projected as the only truly abled body. So, in a very basic sense patriarchy declares the female body as fundamentally disabled. Psycho-analysis tells us that this disability is a lack – the absence of the penis! So, by virtue of not having a penis, a woman is handicapped anyway. Hence, the benevolent patriarchal care and concern for the female body – those poor, weak things that are incapable of taking care of themselves. This handicap is, as it were, intensified if she has sight, hearing, speech, motor skills or any other impairment.

From inclusion to exclusion?

Cinemascope, Jan '15

Paramita Banerjee reviews The Unheard Voice: The Trans-Shamanic Culture of Manipur

Filmmaker Madhusree Dutta informs us that “in 1914, the word ‘documentary’ was used for the first time in the prospectus of the Continental Film Company in USA for In the Land of Head Hunters, a film on American Indians by ethnographer Edward S. Curtis” (In Defence of Political Documentary, Infochangeindia webzine). She goes on to tell us that in India this genre of films flourished in the 1950s, when Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru established the Films Division of India primarily to produce films as a mechanism to reach out to a vast majority of the people in the newly formed nation state, many of them illiterate, to inform them about the vastness, greatness and pluralistic cultures of the country.

Daring to dream

Insight, Cinemascope, Jun '14

Nitin Karani on the experience of the fifth ‘Kashish Mumbai International Queer Film Festival’

Marathi film Mitraa won the Best Indian Short Narrative
Film Award - a trophy and cash prize of Rs. 20,000
sponsored by Anupam Kher's Actor Prepares School
All photo credits: Kashish MIQFF

Every year, a couple of months before May, one feels trepidation: Will there be a new edition of ‘Kashish’ or not? If you have had a glimpse behind the scenes into the sheer amount of effort and hand wringing behind putting together one edition, you would understand why the apprehension. But each year ‘Kashish Mumbai International Queer Film Festival’ not only happens, it also grows bigger in scale in what seems on the face of a miracle. Festival Director Sridhar Rangayan has a zest for cinema and an indefatigable passion for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) equality, which is probably why, come May, one knows that ‘Kashish’ is definitely on, come hell or high water. Of course, it must require Sridhar Rangayan to summon all of his will power and tap into all of his goodwill to bring together an ever-growing band of friends and queer allies, starting with festival co-organiser Humsafar Trust and festival patron Shyam Benegal.

Reel dialogues

Cinemascope, Dec '13
Sanjib Basu was at ‘Dialogues: 7^th Calcutta Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Film and Video Festival’ held at Max Mueller Bhavan, Kolkata, November 21-24, 2013 and took a good hard look at some of the film fare on offer.

The pass said 5 pm. Around 6.15 pm, the lights finally dimmed, and ‘Dialogues: 7th Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Film and Video Festival’ was inaugurated. To add to the delay that has become normal and prolonged at such events, the short memorial clip on Rituparno Ghosh that started the ball rolling had a terrible audio glitch. It was repeated, and fared not too much better.

'Kashish': Sparking off a queer cinema rush

Cinemascope, Oct '13
Nitin Karani and Pawan Dhall in conversation with Sridhar Rangayan, Festival Director of the four-year old ‘Kashish Mumbai International Queer Film Festival’, which has pulled up several notches India’s fledgling queer film festival scene

Pawan: What is 'Kashish' all about?

Sridhar: 'Kashish' primarily is meant to mainstream lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (queer) visibility through cinema. For the Indian queer audiences, the festival offers a mirror to similar lives, struggles and victories in other parts of the world. For the ‘mainstream’ audiences (who comprise about 30%), it is an opportunity to form a better understanding of queer persons, their lives, hopes and aspirations.

In the imaginarium of Karan Johar

Cinemascope, Aug '13

By Sayan Bhattacharya

Recently while surfing TV channels, I chanced upon a talk show featuring Karan Johar and his lead pair in Bombay Talkies, Randeep Hooda and Saqib Salim, filmmakers Onir and Sridhar Rangayan. The show was being compered by Anupama Chopra. It was about the depiction of ‘alternate sexuality’ in Bollywood. When a popular TV channel presents a talk on depiction of sexuality in films, it does mean that such discussions grab eyeballs because TV today caters only to the market! So great! But why the term ‘alternate’? Who decides what is mainstream and what isn’t? Isn’t that a paradox? You are celebrating the presence of desires of all hues in the mainstream and then you are also marginalizing those very desires with a certain terminology!