Bangalore Queer Film Festival 2019

Join us in celebrating the 10th Anniversary of the Bangalore Queer Film Festival (BQFF)! In keeping with our longstanding efforts to engage with current social and cultural issues, we are delighted to host BQFF's one-of-a-kind Art Exhibition from August 1st to 4th and its outstanding Panels, Discussions and Screenings on August 3rd & 4th.

BQFF, perhaps the largest film festival to deal with LGBT themes in the south, is a yearly fixture in Bangalore’s cultural calendar. Run entirely by volunteers – a small group of friends – the festival is committed to the circulation of good queer cinema, including films from non-Western locations, films by independent filmmakers, popular cinema that experiments with LGBT concerns, and experimental films that push aesthetic limits. BQFF has brought, and will continue to bring films for and by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and other communities that fall outside the heterosexual norm.

BQFF @ the Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan

Thursday, August 1, 2019 - Sunday, August 4, 2019

Holding You Close: The BQFF Art Exhibition
10.00 a.m. to 9.00 p.m. 
Holding You Close is an exhibition that explores the individual and collective fashionings and fantasies of the queer community, showcasing the works of three of its artists: Aryakrishnan R., Renuka Rajiv and Sandip Kuriakose. Making their work through the people they do and do not meet, people they encounter in person or virtually, or by choosing to be in their homes and occupy their time, they use multiple modes of making to offer a sense of what it means to occupy a "queer-time" and "queer-space". The exhibition is meant to make one pause and reflect: What does it mean for you to live, love and luxuriate within this queer-time and queer-space? Have you carved out a queer-time and queer-space for yourself?

Saturday, August 3, 2019

Pop-Up Bookstore
11.00 a.m. - 6.00 p.m.
Wander through a unique Pop-Up Bookstore set up by BQFF and Champaca. The carefully curated selection displayed will explore themes of caste, gender, queer narratives and other relevant topics.

Panel: How To Make A Queer Image
6.50 - 7.35 p.m.
Panelists: Priya Sen, Debalina, Satya Nagpaul, Shilpi Gulati, Jainendra Dost
Moderator: Shai Heredia
What is a queer image, and how does one make it, remake it, and negotiate with it? How do we see it and how do others?

Sunday, August 4, 2019

Panel: The Language of Films
11.00 a.m. - 12.00 p.m.
Panellists: Mujeer Pasha, Unnikrishnan Avala and Crew, Christy Raj, Rohan Kanwade, Manoj Thorat
Moderator: Gee Imaan
Who talks and who listens? What is the language of cinema? Who are its fluent speakers and who needs translation?

An Evening of Poetry & Book Launch
6.00 - 7.00 p.m.
Listen to four poets talk about life, love, lust and loss, about queerness and not queerness, about that special place which is the fount of words and poetry! The Festival closes with An Evening of Poetry featuring ground-breaking queer activists, writers and poets Hoshang Merchant, Vikramaditya Sahai, Namita Aavriti and Joshua Muyiwa. Hoshang Merchant's latest book, The Gay Icons of India, is just out and will be launched at the BQFF.

For the complete event schedule, including the events at Alliance Francaise on August 1st and 2nd, please visit Bangalore Queer Film Festival