Colours of hope, optimism at this film festival

In 2013, Chennai Dost, major support group for gay, bisexual men and women in the city organised the first Chennai Rainbow Film Festival. Since then, the festival has become an important event in the city’s calendar and has been growing bigger and better every year. 

Over the course of next few days, numerous short and feature films which deal with issues being faced by the community across India, music and dance performances, talks and panel discussions, will be held in the city. The event will be conducted across five different venues.

“We are trying to create a dialogue between the mainstream and our community through the event. This year we are doing it across mainstream theatres and multiplexes in the city to make our point. We are screening five feature films this year. Among them, Stonewall (2015) by Roland Emmerich, and Play the Devil by Maria Govan, both will have an Indian premiere at the festival. Both the films have received several awards already. 

We are also looking forward to screen Capital I , an Odia thriller film by acclaimed director Amartya Bhattacharya. The film was screened at Paris International Film Festival recently and was well received by the audience,” said Sasha Reddy, Director of CRFF. 

As a community initiative, CRFF aims to provide a venue for screening the works of established and emerging gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer video and filmmakers or others who portray the community in a positive and affirmative light. It also intends to counter issues of invisibility and misinformation by providing a forum for viewing films that depict our lives and loves, and for discussing the films in a social and political context. The festival had a star-studded opening ceremony on Wednesday along with a fashion show at Park Hyatt.