NY film fest I-View throws light on homosexuality
Indira Kannan / CNN-IBN
Published on Mon, Aug 31, 2009 at 18:00
New York: The I-View film festival in New York has been put together by Engendered, an organisation which works to create awareness around gender and sexuality in the south Asian diaspora.
Indian actors at the red carpet opening on Friday acknowledged that Indian commercial cinema has not been kind to the gay community.
"In the name of entertainment or for identification of who the character is in a film, it's been clichéd and stereotypical to say the least. Not that things are changing drastically, but it's a start and something like this helps," said actor Boman Irani.
It could be argued that even a film like Dostana, set in Miami, essentially mined homosexuality and gays for laughs. But the Dostana team defended their treatment of the subject in the film.
"We can talk about it very seriously but about 10 people are willing to listen to you. When you talk about it with an element of fun I think a lot more people are open to that conversation. So that is why I chose that kind of humorous path," said Dostana director, Tarun Mansukhani.
"The beauty about Dostana is that it was never derogatory or deriding to any specific community. And if that is been a platform to a large extent for people, then I guess it's great. I guess it's great if it's given a platform to the gay community," said actor John Abraham.
Sandwiched between Dostana and the closing film Luck By Chance, the I-View film festival offers an eclectic mix of independent films, shorts, documentaries, and from the archives, films like Shyam Benegal's Mandi and Mira Nair's My Own Country, all dealing with gender and sexuality in some way.
Indian commercial cinema has rarely treated the topic of homosexuality with any degree of sensitivity. With film festivals like I-View paying more attention to the subject, that could change.
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/ny-film-fest … 356-8.html
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