BQFF 2012 final schedule has emerged! This is it folks: 3 days of time-tabled fun.
SCHEDULE
Performances February 25th, Saturday: Poetry Reading: Apphia Kumar, Biswamit Dwibedy, Dhanish Sheikh, Minal Hajratwala, Joshua Muyiwa and others will read from a selection of their recent works.
February 26th, Sunday: Nisha Ahuja will perform excerpts from a one-woman play titled “Yoga Cannibal” which talks about a break-up in a lesbian relationship. This will be followed by a dance performance by members of Good As You (GAY) choreographed by Karim Khubchandani to a mash-up of pop and Bollywood numbers. Karim Khubchandani and Romal Singh will perform a conversation on hook-ups.
Exhibition Innaugral Friday, 24th Feb, 2:30pm
Akshay Mahajan curates two bodies of work:
Inner Face by Gazi Nafis Admed (Bangladesh)
Rana & Amit
“I do not want to introduce myself as Rana here. I want to speak as a lover. We met each other in our neighborhood, through our friends. Our relationship is very intimate; it would not wrong to label us husband and wife. We are from different religious backgrounds, but that did not matter. I believe our love is beyond the moral judgments of society, and so we will keep on loving each other, a love that remains undeclared. This attraction I feel towards other men today will always be there. We profoundly experience, and appreciate, every single moment of the relationship we are going through. We have a good life, a pretty life, almost as if it is wrapped up in beautifully colored paper.”
KILLING KITTENS by Andrea Fernandes (India)
“From the moment we started to understand ourselves, we have woven our dreams onto a broad tapestry of human conditions. The dreams of our society and those of our own are not always the same. Society wants to confine us within the limits of its sense of propriety, to its sense of gender identity. But we want our dreamscapes to be our own, where we will have endless freedom, our own values, free expression of our thoughts and emotions. Like nature shapes the world to its will, we want our own nature to give shape to our world, a world that accepts us without any reservations. We want our existence to be our own. This chasm between the ideals of society and our Utopia tortures our bodies and souls, burns our bridges to the world at large, and perpetuates our estrangement.
How long will it go on like this? We do not exist beyond the boundaries of society; by purging us, will it be building a better version of itself? If that is not so, then let us build bridges that connect us all, bridges that make sure that our dreamscapes no longer remain confined to the realms of our dreams, bridges that let us all coexist in harmony. How much longer do we have to wait before we reach that horizon where our dreams and days unite?”
Printer’s Devil
As photographers with extensive printing experience we can assist you to leap the technical hurdles involved in digital printmaking, enabling you to produce high-quality archival pigment prints for exhibition.
Akshay Mahajan, b.1985 is perhaps best known for his portraits of India’s new urban youth. Published in: Wall Street Journal, Le Monde Diplomatique, The Daily Telegraph (UK), La Repubblica (Italy). Invited Attendee at the Eddie Adams Workshop 2009. He is also the co-publisher of blindboys.org, a community-driven space that uses simple and effective ways to reach out to photographers and audiences alike.
On Sunday morning we will premiere a package curated by Shai Heredia, who organizes and curates Experimenta, the only experimental video and film festival in India. The package includes four films by Riyad Vinci Wadia and Oliver Husain. As Shai describes them, the films range from “performance art to queer monologues, and excursions into camp-glamour”. Riyad Wadia’s film in particular marks an important moment in the history of queer filmmaking in India. Riyad Wadia’s brother Roy Wadia will join us for a small discussion on the works being shown.
The Bangalore Queer Film Festival is also thrilled to announce a generous contribution by Akram Zaatari to our festival. He has sent us five of his films including ‘Red Chewing Gum’ and ‘Crazy of you’. His latest film ‘Tomorrow night, everything will be alright’ will also be screened on Saturday. Zaatari is probably better known as an artist, especially in relation to his work with studio photographers in Lebanon and other parts of the Middle East, and he is also the founder of the Arab Image Foundation. The films that are part of BQFF are layered with projections of old videos and photographs and are stories about remembering lost loves and people.
Do you want to be an usher? A poll-taker of films? A photographer? A video-maker? A tech assistant? A general flunky? A tour guide for visiting film makers… the list is endless.
You can help the Bangalore Queer Film Festival 2012 by volunteering. We do love our volunteers and give them cake sometimes. Check out http://blrqueerfilmfest.com/volunteer/ for more details, the form and different tasks.
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