Organizers of Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender (LGBT) festival Kashish 2012 claim that if protests do at all happen at the film festival site, then they would reserve seats for the protestors so that they "understood" what queer is all about.
Scheduled to be held during May 23–27, 2012 in Mumbai, the third edition of Kashish 2012 promises to screen 125 films, programmed in a manner where queer characters and queer stories are part of a larger narrative, which the organizers hope appeals to a wide cross section of audience.
In keeping with the "For Everyone" theme of the Kashish 2012, the other festival director Sridhar Rangayan claims that both the opening film "Beginners" and the closing film "Weekend" reflected the theme best.
The organizers claimed that several celebrities were scheduled to participate as well as attend the festival, whose jury comprises well known actors, filmmakers, theatre personalities and critics — Mahabanoo Mody-Kotwal, Renuka Shahane, Parvin Dabas, Mona Ambegoankar and Mayank Shekar.
"Moushumi Chatterjee is unveiling the queer art exhibition. We have many celebrity filmmakers and actors coming for the opening — like Sai Paranjpye, Parvati Balgopalan, Suchitra Pillai, Ashustosh Rana, Sarita Joshi as well as celebrity queer activists like Ashok Row Kavi, Laxmi Narayan Tripathi and Manvendra Singh Gohil gracing the occasion," Sridhar said.
Sridhar said that the organisers would love to have a queer film category within the mainstream film festival or have a queer award in a mainstream film festival like the Teddy awards at the Berlin International Film Festival, which he said would eliminate the need for a "separate queer film festival."
"There would be no separate queer film festival if the queer people are absolutely integrated, accepted in the mainstream and given equal rights," he said.
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