India hosts International ‘Queer’ Film Festival

India's movie capital Mumbai is getting ready to host their International Queer Film Festival, during which they will showcase more than 100 gay, lesbian, and transsexual-themed films from 25 countries. The organizers say "Queer" is an umbrella term that includes people that are gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender. At a press conference on April 16, Bollywood actress and gay rights activist Celina Jaitley launched the film festival campaign, unveiling the festival trailer. "We look forward for this film festival, I am one of the jury members, committee jury member, and this is basically an initiative to mainstream issues about transgender and also put them in very nice manner so that people really understand the meaning of being a transgender," she said. The festival is titled "Kashish," which means "attraction or allurement". The four day event will begin on April 22, and promises to bring together filmmakers, writers, academics, activists, and movie stars to celebrate the diversity in human sexuality. "It's the film festival for everybody," said festival director Sridhar Rangayan. "We want everybody to come and see and understand what being queer means." All the films screened at the festival will highlight gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender characters and stories, exploring the issues, dilemmas, joys and sorrows that make up experiences of gay and transgender people in India and all over the world. There have been gay-themed film festivals in India before, but their audiences have always remained limited to small groups comprising of mainly gay rights activists. However, some recent high-profile Bollywood films have also dealt with gay issues, and the festival organizers say they aim to reach out to as large an audience as possible this time round. Apart from film screenings, the festival will also feature panel discussions, music video launches, and talks with film makers. Gay people in India face a long battle to gain acceptance, social and legal, in this deeply conservative country where even heterosexual sex is talked about in hushed tones. "We are the largest populated country, believe me there is more sex going on here than anywhere in the world," said Celina Jaitley. "So we are ready for sex, everybody is doing it, except it that nobody is talking about it... that is alright—we don't have to talk about it, we just have to accept the things the way they are and there is nothing wrong about it. We are all human beings and we do what is human." Homosexuality is slowly gaining acceptance in some parts of India, especially in its big cities with the last two years seeing large gay pride parades in New Delhi and other big cities such as Mumbai and Calcutta. But still, being gay remains deeply taboo in most of the country, and many homosexuals hide their sexual orientation from their friends and families. Last year, homosexuals in India achieved a small victory when the Delhi High Court struck down a law, Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, that made sex between people of the same gender punishable by up to 10 years in prison. While actual criminal prosecutions are rare, the law had frequently been used to harass people.—AP