Cannes Film Festival is a prestigious stage, where talents are appreciated. This year Cannes will represent five queer movies including one Indian take, to cherish the queer culture.
With a population of more than 150 Million, queer representation in Indian movies was a must have, which the western countries started a long ago. India is a diverse country and rich with culture. If you delve deep into the culture background, we’ll find many upfront and hidden signs of queer and same sex representation in our culture.
But, as much as it was considered as a taboo thing to, which must be hidden with the help of cinema right now the murmurs are not that loud anymore.
Bollywood is over 100 years old and with time it is slowly evolving , and if we look into the matter of fact we’ll see movies like “Margarita With A Straw”, “Badhaai Do”, “Shubh Mangal Zyaada Saavdhan”, and “Kapoor and Sons” which represented queerness in a very beautiful manner.
Also a big shift took place in casting as well, where for queer roles people are casting queer actors and Transgenders for their roles, making it so acceptable where nobody can deny their rights in society.
Not only in Hindi cinemas, Bengali industry is also taking part in making LGBTQ+ a natural things, Rituparno Ghosh who was way ahead of his time, made movies like “Memories In March” and “Chitrangada: The Crowning Wish”, where sexuality is explored in a very lyrically beautiful manner.
Not only this, movies like “Samantoral”, “Nagarkirtan”, is also a part of this ongoing movement.
To solidify this representation, five queer represented movies are gonna be in Cannes. The movie, “From All Sides” fearlessly deals with queer sexuality, it also includes an Indian UK French Co production movie called “Arms of a Man” (“Sabar Bonda”) which talks about a city guy who falls in love with a farmer.
With such diverse range of movies this year’s Cannes will be a treat for movie fanatics.