Lives less known under spotlight
Different Voices
The third edition of Bangalore Queer Film Festival (BQFF) was organised at the Alliance Francaise recently by Good As You (GAY), We're Here and Queer (WHAQ), Swabhava and Pirat Dykes.
The three-day festival was intended to serve as a space for LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) concerns to be voiced through the medium of movies. This year’s edition of the festival presented 53 films from 14 countries, out of which nine were full-length feature films, 28 were short films, four were experimental movies, eight were short documentaries and five were full-length documentaries.
The highlight of the first day was Danish film-maker Nicolo Donato’s Brotherhood — a gritty gay love story set in a neo-Nazi camp. At a time when prejudices are at its peak, this movie struck a chord with the audience instantly and had most of them in tears by the end of it.
Another documentary that won hearts instantly was I Shot My Love by Tomer Heymann. Based on Tomer’s life, this documentary talks about his relationship with his German dancer boyfriend Andreas Merk and Tomer’s Israeli mother. A cute movie, it left a smile on most faces.
Bharath Bhushan, a movie enthusiast, said, “I was at the previous queer film festivals too. However, then I was unable to make it to the first two days. This year, I made it a point to take all three days off from work. I really liked the documentary Straight Laced. It spoke of some major issues one faces as a teenager.”
The first day of the festival also included a photo exhibition with the theme, Haptic: Of or relating to the sense of touch; tactile, which was appreciated by all. The second day saw
considerably larger crowds and more people from the LGBT community turned up for the film festival.
The Argentinean movie by Marco Berger titled Plan B was the hot favourite. Plan B tells the story of Bruno, who in an attempt to win back his ex-girlfriend makes Pablo, her boyfriend fall in love with him.
In this attempt, he ends up discovering his own sexuality. The other movie that grabbed eyeballs on the second day was the renowned TV film, Prayers for Bobby. Based on the true story of Mary Griffith, it was a tear-jerker and moved many hearts.
