Kashish 2021

KASHISH 2021 rescheduled due to the pandemic KASHISH 2021 to take place now from August 19th to September 5th 2021 The 12th edition of KASHISH Mumbai International Queer Film Festival, South Asia’s biggest LGBTQIA+ film festival which was to be held online in May has been rescheduled from August 19th to September 5th 2021 owing to the current situation of the pandemic in the country and across the world. In a statement released recently the organizers of the film festival said “considering the situation of the raging pandemic in the country and across the world, and the anguish it is causing to everyone around the festival’s Executive Committee and the Advisory Board has empathetically felt that we should reschedule KASHISH 2021 to a later date”. Sridhar Rangayan, festival director said, “As a film festival that is by the people and for the people, we felt that we cannot continue with the festival as planned due to the challenging situation all around us. We felt it was important for the situation to improve and people to heal before we celebrate the film festival in its true spirit. Also like last year, as part of our ‘KASHISH We Care’ initiative, we plan to donate 60% of the registration collections to NGOs working to offer relief to the Transgender community during the pandemic”. The festival had already announced their line-up of 200+ LGBTQIA films from 50+ countries on their website and also started Earlybird registrations for audiences to attend the festival. Saagar Gupta, director of programming said, “We are thankful to our 200+ shortlisted filmmakers, distributors who have sent in their amazing films to screen with us. We are safely holding on to their films and will screen on the new dates of the festival”. The new dates for KASHISH 2021 are August 19th to September 5th 2021, spread over 3-weekends, to be held online. The move has been appreciated by filmmakers and partners of the festival as well as audience members, as per the messages being received by the organizers. Till the main festival begins the organizers have announced that they will facilitate screenings of some amazing LGBTQIA+ films from KASHISH archives and also continue their #KASHISHLiveChats on Instagram which have become popular. They recently hosted a live chat with Konkana Sen Sharma on her role as a same-sex loving person in the short film Geeli Pucchi in the series Ajeeb Daastans. Other personalities who have featured in these live chats have been National Award winning filmmaker Onir, president of Whistling Woods Meghna Ghai Puri, ebullient singer Sona Mohapatra, and actress Sushama Deshpande who plays the lead in the upcoming short film, My Mother’s Girlfriend. These live chats also featured upcoming talents like filmmaker Sudipto Kundu who won the National Award for his documentary short Ladli and actor Benjamin Diamary who won a special mention at the National Award for his role of a transgender person in the Assamese feature film Jonaki Porua. Earlybird registrations continue to remain open for audiences within India at https://tinyurl.com/K21RegIndia and for audiences outside India at https://xerb.tv/channel/kashish2021/virtual-events/ticket-packages/show For more details about the festival check out the festival website https://mumbaiqueerfest.com/