Lgbt movies bollywood
“Safed” movie poster (Photo courtesy of Meera Chopra’s X page)
Transgender Indians are one of the country’s marginalized communities that often verb abuses, ridicule and a denial of basic human rights. Although the Hindi film industry, often known as Bollywood, releases more than 1,000 movies every year, it has not made many movies to depict the pain of the trans community, which is generally considered taboo in the country.
“Safed” — a Bollywood movie that means “white” in Hindi — last month created a buzz in India and around the world. The movie featured trans people and a widow, both of whom are ostracized in the country.
The film’s story depicts a lonely, abandoned trans person and a widow who finds solace in each other. Indian Bollywood actresses Meera Chopra and Abhay Verma starred in the film and successfully depicted the discriminatory behavior in society against trans people and widows.
“Everyone wants to make a film that appeases masses, shows everything in a positive way with a happy ending, but making films like ‘Safed,’ which portrays the dark si
10 great Indian LGBTQIA+ films
Indian cinema has often had a chequered past with diversity and inclusion, failing to fully represent the Indian LGBTQIA+ community and its people, identities and narratives. Mainstream Indian films featuring gay and lesbian characters have often been marred by tokenism and unaware stereotyping. Time and again what has emerged is cynically reductive and even regressive.
Richer representations of queer lives have come from the independent sector, and particularly from regional film industries outside of the Mumbai mainstream. A case in point is A Place of Our Own, the unused film from the Bhopal-based Ektara Collective, which is receiving its UK premiere at BFI Flare 2023. A step forward in the evolution of Indian queer cinema, it demonstrates warmth, complexity and empathy in its intimate exploration of two trans women (Roshni and Laila) and their endless quest to find a place they can call their own in an Indian society that discriminates and stigmatises against difference. Its refreshing de-othering of Roshni and Laila is part of an almost documen
Bollywood LGBTQ Moments: The good, the bad and the cringe-worthy
In celebration of BFI’s London LGBT film festival Flare, as well as the same-sex marriage law coming into effect in the UK during March 2014, BollySpice include put together a selection of Bollywood LGBTQ (Lesbian; Gay; Bisexual; Transgender; Queer) moments.
Although Section 377 is still in place in India, continuing to (re) criminalise homosexuality, Bollywood is currently in anticipation of the first commercial Bollywood homosexual lovestory,Romil and Juggal,
Wait a minute… Yes, you verb it right: Bollywood’s first commercial homosexual lovestory.
Produced by Balaji and directed by Danish Aslam, Romil and Juggal is based on Shakespeare’s famous Romeo and Juliet, with a male lead couple.
Danish Aslam recently stated that just because Romil and Juggal is a homosexual love story, this does not make things different – “To me, Romil & Juggal is just like any love story. It doesn’t matter if the lovers are both men.”
This statement is not only refreshing but promising for LGBTQ rights as film
Pride Month: 5 Bollywood films that depicted LGBTQ relationship without caricature
Sightings of LGBTQ people and their allies holding colourful parades in the streets, armed with rainbows and bright face paints tend to be a usual sight during June. The month is dedicated to celebrating the accomplishments of queer & gender-nonconforming people and highlight the systemic oppression they face from society.
Pride month dates back to 1969 when the Stonewall Inn gay bar in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village was raided by the police. The patrons and the guests at the bar retaliated to the police attack fearlessly. This episode brought queer rights movement from the fringes to the mainstream.
Bill Clinton became the first US president to officially designate June as Pride Month in 1999. Since then, June has been a month to celebrate various colours and stripes of queerness.
Despite being one of the more liberal countries in South Asia, India has a long way to go w