Calcutta's original LGBT film festival

Siddhartha Gautam Film Festival 2010

Siliguri (March 21), Kolkata (March 26, 27)

 

Job Charnock's City [The city of Calcutta ] has always been the most cosmopolitan at heart, and thankfully remians that way. One of the events in the annual calendar in recent years has been The Siddartha Gautam Film Festival.

 

The festival is organized  in memory of the pioneering activist Siddhartha Gautam and seeks to generate awareness and dialogue on gender, sexuality, HIV, sexual and reproductive health, and human rights issues. It was inspired by the annual festival organized by The Friends of Siddhartha group in New Delhi each year from 1993 to 2003. It came to Calcutta in 2003.  Over the years, the festival has become a multi-venue, week long event. It reaches out to audiences in both urban and rural areas in West Bengal and Orissa. It includes theatre-based and mobile film screenings.

 Later in the year, the festival will be organized in Bhubaneswar and other places in Orissa, and may also make its debut in Shillong, Meghalaya.

 

This year the festival aims to highlight and support legal efforts to protect the rights of people living with HIV and decriminalize same-sex love in India . The films will be seen by a diverse audience of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersexed, Kothi, Hijra and other queer people; people infected or affected by HIV; social workers; health care providers; government officials; college and university students; and media persons. Families and friends of queer people and people living with HIV will be especially welcome.

 

The festival is being co-organized by Koshish – Ek Asha, Northern Black Rose, People Like Us (PLUS) and Solidarity and Action Against The HIV Infection in India (SAATHII), Kolkata Office on behalf of the Coalition of Rights Based Groups (CRBG), a state level advocacy forum to advance the health and rights of sexual minorities and people living with HIV in West Bengal.

 

For enquiries:Phone: 033 2484 5002 (SAATHII), 0 98305 10527 (Agniva Lahiri), 0 98312 88023 (Pawan Dhall). E-mail: saathii@yahoo.com