THE BANGALORE QUEER FILM FESTIVAL 2015

BQFF 2015 featured over 55 films from 22 countries, including France, Belgium, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Australia, Iran, Slovenia, Russia, India, Germany, Finland, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, USA, UK, Por- tugal, Spain, Myanmar, Fiji, Taiwan and China. We opened with a bang, thrusting Cheryl Dunye’s lesbian romp Mommy is Coming at an audience that was then thrown into a frenzy. The Centre Piece featured two films – Robin Campillo’s Eastern Boys, a sinister yet empathetic story of Muller and young ‘Eastern boy’ Marek; and Çağla Zencirci and Guillaume Giovanetti’s Noor, a story of a heart-broken khusra who wants to be a man again and find love again. Our Closing Night showcased Joaquim Pinto’s surreal and evocative E-Agora? Lembra-Me (What Now? Remind Me), about the filmmaker looking back on his life while undergoing experimental drug treatment for HIV. The women-lovers in the audience sighed over Violette, a period film that fictionalises the relationship that between Violette Leduc and Simone de Beauvoir. And last but not least, our first full-length Indian experimental film which premiered at the BQFF – Moloy Mukherjee’s Amar Bhavna Kintu Dur Holona  (Messy Forever), an indescribable play of image, identity and narrative.