6 Films You Should Check Out At The Kashish Queer Film Festival

The 12th Kashish Mumbai International Queer Film Festival is underway. Like last year, this year too, due to restrictions relating to COVID-19, the films are being premiered virtually, with limited windows to access them — 2 days within its premiere. This year they are screening 221 films from over 53 countries. 

The festival opened on August 19 with No Hard Feelings, about Persian immigrants in Berlin — the son of Iranian exiles finds friendship and love among those who escaped the regime and are now possibly being deported. It was a kind, sometimes catty peek at masculinity, sex, and sexuality amidst the roving crisis of home, homelessness, and homesickness. The first weekend had some lovely movies playing, including the visually poignant and charming The Man With The Answers where a Greek and a German man give each other company on a road trip.

Here are six films which will premiere in the upcoming weeks that we are looking forward to watching. You can check out the entire schedule of the festival here. 

1) Firebird — September 5th

Based on a true story, Firebird is a British-Estonian film set in the Soviet Air Force during the Cold War. Sergey, a young private, falls in love with Roman, a fighter pilot. Under the all-seeing Soviet regime, and a KGB investigation, their troubled romance unravels. 

2) Love Spells And All That — September 4

This lush-looking Turkish film is set on an island on a blistering summer day, when two long-lost lovers — Eren, the daughter of a powerful MP and Reyhan, the daughter of the keeper of their summerhouse —  reunite against all odds and pressures of the outside world. 

3) The Lawyer — August 28

This Lithuanian film follows a gay corporate lawyer who whiles his days chasing young lovers. When tragedy strikes, an unlikely bond with a sex-cam worker — a Syrian refugee stuck in Belgrade — offers him some solace. 

4) Cicada  — September 2

Over a summer in Brooklyn, a promiscuous hypochondriac falls in love with a data analyst, a man of colour who is struggling with deep wounds of his own. As their intimacy develops, they begin to negotiate both trauma and love. Boy Meets Boy, another film showing at Kashish — September 3rd — follows a similar story, but over a day in Berlin. 

5) A Skeleton In the Closet — August 28

This riotous Argentinian film about Manual coming out to his parents while visiting home over Christmas, balances the hush-hush aftermath with the tough time he is having when his boyfriend breaks up with him. 

6) Unsound — September 5

The closing film of Kashish Mumbai International Queer Film Festival, this is an Australian film about disillusioned musician falling in love with a young trans man as they work together to save his community nightclub for the deaf.