Kashish 2024 to have Deepa Mehta and Nandita Das in a 'Fire' side chat!

Internationally acclaimed filmmaker Deepa Mehta will present her film ‘I Am Sirat’ at Kashish 2024 and have a ‘Fire’ side chat with filmmaker, Nandita Das!

The 15^th edition of the KASHISH Pride Film Festival announces that filmmaker Deepa Mehta (Earth, Water, Fire, Bollywood/Hollywood, Midnight’s Children) whose films have won numerous awards across the globe, will present her latest documentary feature ‘I am Sirat’, and also participate in a discussion at South Asia’s biggest LGBTQIA+ film festival in Mumbai on May 18, 2024 at Liberty Cinema.

Festival director Sridhar Rangayan exclaims, “We have wanted to host Deepa Mehta at KASHISH for many years, and now the dreams have come true. We are thrilled by this wonderful opportunity to have this momentous chat with Deepa Mehta and Nandita Das. We hope to have a fireside chat with these two indomitable women who will crackle in conversation with the amazing Meenakshi Sheede”. 

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Deepa Mehta said, “To a large degree, we are products of our cultural environment. From the film Fire to the documentary I Am Sirat, thanks to the LGBTQ+ film festival KASHISH, I feel I have come full circle. If Fire, for me, was about the limitations, the judgments that folks hold against same-sex love between women, I Am Sirat, a doc made 26 years later, is about a transgender who waits patiently for her mother to recognize that her son chooses to be a woman. Both Fire and I am Sirat examine the same question- Why is self-determination in women considered selfish? I am grateful to KASHISH for allowing us to dwell upon this basic truth”.

Nandita Das said, “Fire was a landmark film and ignited the much-needed conversation around the LGBTQ issue. Though, at the time, this vocabulary didn’t even exist! While we still have a long way to go, we have come a long way since then. KASHISH is a testament to that. Personally, it began my exploration and commitment to calling out 'othering' that we have so normalized. I have tried to address it through my social advocacy and films. Fire and all the conversations it has triggered have helped me evolve as a person and become a strong ally. I am looking forward to reminiscing about this journey with Deepa”.

Kashish 2024 film festival will celebrate 26 years since the release of the film Fire, directed by Deepa Mehta, by facilitating a fireside chat with her and director Nandita Das, in conversation with film critic and curator Meenakshi Shedde. This event- ‘’Fire’’ side chat with Deepa Mehta and Nandita Das is scheduled for May 18 at Liberty Cinema from 4.30 pm to 5.30 pm. This discussion, supported by the Consulate General of Canada, attempts to unpack the beginnings of the LGBTQIA+ movement in India with the release of the film Fire in 1998 and track forward to what the current scenario is for LGBTQIA+ rights, but more importantly, the representation of LGBTQIA+ characters in cinema and web series, both in India and in Canada.

Over 25 years ago, unaided by Twitter and Facebook, a film went viral in India. Fire was the first in mainstream Indian cinema to explore lesbian love. Released theatrically in 1998 in India, it introduced a taboo subject to the audience of the world’s largest film-producing and film-viewing nation. It became a sparking point for the LGBTQIA+ community to come together and rally for equal rights. 26 years later, with homosexuality having been decriminalized and the struggle for marriage equality taking center stage, we look back and also track forward the impact of films on equal rights movements. 

‘I am Sirat’, co-directed by Deepa Mehta and Sirat Taneja, a transgender person in New Delhi on which life the documentary is based, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and has gained acclaim worldwide. The 87-minute film will premiere on Saturday, May 18, and both Deepa and Sirat will be present to present the film and interact with the audience. Caught between duty and self-determination, Sirat Taneja is a transgender woman who must act as her mother’s son when at home in New Delhi. However, she can be the woman she is with her friends and at work with the Government of India. A collaboration between Deepa Mehta and Sirat, the film has been constructed around Sirat’s lens. Shot on smartphones, Sirat controls her narrative and makes it accessible to us.

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