“Never have I ever kissed someone … who did not want to kiss me.” In Sonam Nair’s We Need to Talk, a short film presented by Tinder India, a party game triggers uncomfortable yet revelatory conversations between a group of friends, paving way to a compelling exploration of consent and boundaries. Though technically a marketing piece, We Need to Talk manages to exude sincerity with its mature and dignified lens on the group of young adults, subtly dwelling on the importance of communication in relationships, of all kinds.
In Reema Sengupta’s Counterfeit Kunkoo, the protagonist is a young Mumbaikar named Smita (a captivating Kani Kusruti), a woman robbed of a space of her own, a roof over her head, due to her status as a woman separated from her abusive husband (Vijay Varma). In the film, no matter that she makes a decent living by making imitation mangalsutras, her lack of a husband becomes her irredeemable flaw in the eyes of the city’s residents. Right from the beginning of Counterfeit Kunkoo, Reema sets the audience up on a claustrophobic journey, the sheer desperation of a woman trapped by the chains of patriarchal propriety seamlessly seeping through to us, leaving us with an unsettling sense of unease.
Then there is Arun Fulara’s Sunday, which follows the middle-aged Kamble through one of his routine Sunday trips to the neighbourhood barber shop, for a shave that curiously leaves him giddy and smiling for the rest of the day. Led by a fantastic Shrikant Yadav as Kamble, Sunday is all ‘show, don’t tell’, laying bare the complexities of queer loneliness, yearning, and societal shackles, as its protagonist silently seeks out the young barber’s touch through his gentle face massages.
So go the films screened and conversations sparked at SamaBhav in Kochi, where this unique travelling film festival — themed around gender, masculinity, sexuality, and diversity — held its latest edition in collaboration with the Film Club and the Department of English at the Sacred Heart College in Thevara on August 1 and 2. The festival, helmed by a voluntary group called Men Against Violence and Abuse (MAVA), was kickstarted in Mumbai in February this year and was last held at Chennai’s Egmore on April 22 and 23.
On the sidelines of the event, filmmaker Jeo Baby, the chief guest at the festival, spoke to TNM about what stood out for him about SamaBhav. “The event is paving way to critical discussions on gender and the need to embrace those who stand beyond the binaries that we usually tend to consider default. Beyond that, it also poses questions such as what violence means, and why and how it happens — which becomes especially relevant because we are well aware of the extent of violence that has been happening around us, in Manipur for instance. I am hoping this festival would help students fine-tune their political views on these subjects,” he said.
The fest, in fact, kicked off with a lively discussion with students on Jeo’s hit film The Great Indian Kitchen, a feminist feature that had inspired both critical acclaim for its gender politics as well as controversy among right-wing groups. As the young women and men in the audience shared what resonated with them most about the film, Jeo too candidly spoke about not expecting the film to find a release in theatres, the initial reluctance of certain OTT platforms to buy the film, and even his disappointment in having succumbed to a cliche narrative of an empowered woman by the end of the film.
Festival director Harish Sadani, filmmaker Jeo Baby, activist Lavanya Soman, and Sacred Heart College's Asha Achy Joseph at the inauguration of SamaBhav in Kochi | Courtesy: Sacred Heart College Film Club
Harish Sadani, the festival founder and the executive director of MAVA, said the primary aim of SamaBhav was indeed to promote such critical dialogue among a wider youth population, and instil in them a nuanced understanding of contemporary gender and human rights issues. Asha Achy Joseph, dean of SH School of Communication and co-founder of the Women in Cinema Collective (WCC), who was one of the panellists at the event, pointed out that the decision to screen films of short formats was also influenced by the fact that it provides students with more opportunities for interaction.
“We need this to be a safe space, especially for students, to both speak up and listen to others without judgement. Cinema is an especially powerful medium to communicate these messages,” said Harish. The festival seemed to have been successful in carving out this safe space he spoke of, with students, panellists, and others in attendance opening up about their personal experiences in the discussions that followed each screening, sometimes even vulnerably addressing sensitive topics such as sexual abuse.
The audience at the SamaBhav film festival in Kochi | Courtesy: Sacred Heart College Film Club
Speaking to TNM, gender rights activist Anagh, who is also the vice-president of the NGO Dhisha, made an appreciative note of SamaBhav’s attempt at inclusivity, specifically citing the festival’s decision to screen Gair (Pariah) directed by Nishant Roy Bombarde — a poignant short that explores the in,tersection of caste and queerness.
In Gair, Pankaj, a young tenant of a lowered caste, moves into a Brahmin household, where he evokes different emotions in each member of the family. The woman of the house, annoyed by her husband’s centrist apathy and empowered by her thinly-veiled caste pride, is in constant pursuit of ways to get rid of Pankaj. But her young caste-threaded son, Rahul (Sahil Mehta), instead finds himself yearning for this enigmatic man, conflicted between age-old prejudices and the stirrings of first love. At the heart of the story is Pankaj, played by a grounded Tanmay Dhanania, a complex man torn between his dual-tabooed identities and desires.
“It is great that this fest is bringing topics such as caste, gender, and sexual orientation into the mainstream. Films such as these provide a certain kind of exposure to people, enabling them to think beyond the heterogenous notions of what a person is supposed to be, and understand that there are people who are doubly oppressed. We commonly see discourses about a woman’s life and position in a patriarchal society. But take, for instance, a Dalit transgender woman. She is also a woman, but her concerns will be very uniquely placed and need to be addressed as such. Our society doesn’t even acknowledge that people with disabilities have sexualities too. It is very important that our minds travel in these directions, for which such festivals are necessary,” Anagh said.
After the screening of Sandhya, a heartwarming tale of a friendship that gradually develops between an upper middle class woman and a trans woman, actor and transgender rights activist Sheethal Shyam pointedly asked a question to the audience, “How many of you have a trans friend in real life?” The response, of course, was no more than two to three hands raised among the audience, causing Sheethal to highlight how misunderstandings regarding a community arise from society’s orchestrated ostracisation of a community. “How would you know what it means to be a trans person if you have never talked to even one person of that experience? How would you understand that they are humans no different from any of you?” she asked.
Speaking to TNM on the festival’s sidelines, Sheethal stressed on the significance of conversations that acknowledge diversities and differences, which is what a festival like SamaBhav has set out to achieve. “Events like these can even inspire younger filmmakers to approach subjects with an in,tersectional perspective, which is the need of the hour,” she added.
Festival director Harish Sadani interacts with panelists Sheethal Shyam and Anagh | Courtesy: Sacred Heart College Film Club
Deepak Nair, a research scholar who has attended several former editions of SamaBhav, said that one of the highlights of this festival is the way it curates some very pointed subjects of interest, which is bound to impact the audience more. “When we discuss concepts such as gender, we typically tend to speak in vastly general terms. But by screening the kind of films that SamaBhav does and with the discussions that follow, the point we are trying to communicate is likely to hit the audience more directly, probably more than a densely packed speech on the subject.”
True to this spirit, almost every film screened at SamaBhav over the two days endeavoured to strike an empathetic chord with the audience, compelling them to place themselves in the shoes of people whose lives are likely far different from their own. If Shivpriy Alok’s Gandi Baat sheds light on an oft-overlooked issue of male child sexual abuse, Black Roses and Red Dresses by Shirley Abraham follows three acid-attack survivors as they write letters to their attackers, confronting the violence committed against them. Ruchibhedam, a Malayalam short film by Teertha Mythri, subtly addresses the need to be accepting and respectful of people’s varied tastes, while Shailaja Padindala’s Naanu Ladies and Arun Fulara’s My Mother’s Girlfriend beautifully explores lesbian love. The hard-hitting Footprints by Tathagata Ghosh dives into the morning of a domestic worker, a woman ‘invisible’ to the world. Three refreshingly-made public service announcements, made by the students of TISS Mumbai, on starkly different subjects within the realm of Hindi cinema were also screened at the fest.
Lavanya Soman, who helped organise the SamaBhav festival in Chennai in April, said that their primary goal was to encourage the audience — especially the students who come to watch the films — to become a voice of courage and speak up for other voices that are underrepresented. “In Chennai, along with the films, we also had theatre play interventions, with actors sitting amongst the audience posing as hecklers and shouting out inappropriate responses. The intention was to create an atmosphere that mirrors the world out there, where sometimes horrible things are said. Other actors would then stand up and respond to them, indicating the need for even bystanders to be sometimes part of the conversation,” she said. Lavanya is the founder and director of SStraight Circles Foundation, a non-profit group aimed at supporting women, children, LGBTQIA+ persons, and other un underrepresent,ed sections.
SamaBhav is next expected to be held in Ahmedabad on August 25 and 26, before travelling to Bhutan on the dates of August 29, 30, and 31.
Watch the trailer for the film festival here: