The 17th edition of the KASHISH Pride Film Festival was unveiled at the Press Club on Thursday, setting the stage for five days of cinema, conversation and celebration centred on queer lives and experiences. Filmmakers, actors, jury members and advisory board members came together to discuss the importance of visibility, representation and inclusive storytelling as the festival prepares to mark Pride Month in Mumbai.
A GLOBAL SHOWCASE OF QUEER CINEMA Announcing this year’s edition, festival director Sridhar Rangayan said, “We are celebrating June Pride Month on-ground with KASHISH from June 3–7, across three South Mumbai venues, the iconic Liberty Cinema throughout the festival, along with Alliance Française de Bombay and the newly added National Gallery of Modern Art. For the first time, this year, we have an app that will have all the info and access.” Festival director Saagar Gupta added, “This year there are 153 films from 43 countries that will be showcased and our theme ‘Reflect, Resonate, Rejoice!’ is an invitation to embrace the full emotional spectrum of queer life,” he said. FILMMAKERS SPOTLIGHT STORIES THAT SPARK CONVERSATIONSAmong the filmmakers present was Sai Deodhar, who introduced her debut feature film Na Aavadti Goshta. Speaking about the inspiration behind the project, she said, “Maharashtrians are a very progressive community, but there is no conversation on LGBTQ. So I wanted to create a film that families could watch together and have a conversation around the topic. Love is the purest emotion, how does gender matter?” Filmmaker Rohan Kanawade spoke about Sabar Bonda, a tender romance between two men set during a ten-day mourning period in a village, while filmmaker-actor Ashish Sawhny discussed his documentary The Sailor and the Chef. INDUSTRY VOICES ON INCLUSION The event also brought together members of the festival’s advisory board, including Arunaraje Patil, Dolly Thakore, Meghna Ghai Puri and Viveck Vaswani, who reflected on KASHISH’s enduring role in fostering empathy, visibility and community through cinema. Members of the festival jury, including Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari and Nikkhil Advani, spoke about the responsibility of storytellers and the entertainment industry in creating more inclusive narratives and spaces. Actor Rajshri Deshpande joined Ashish Sawhny in reflecting on the legacy of his grandmother, celebrated writer Ismat Chughtai, whose landmark 1942 short story Lihaaf explored lesbian desire and faced significant censorship and backlash during its time. Meanwhile, Student Shorts Jury members, including actor Maanvi Gagroo and educationist Rahul Puri, emphasised the need for meaningful representation and stronger institutional support to nurture the future of queer cinema. A FESTIVAL WITH A LASTING LEGACY
- One of South Asia’s biggest LGBTQ+ film festivals
- India’s first mainstream LGBTQ+ film festival
- First Indian LGBT film festival to receive approval from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India
- Voted Top 5 LGBT Film Festivals in the World
- Named Top 15 International Film Festivals Worth Travelling The World For
