Kashish Pride Film Festival Day 4: The Girls Shorts collection brought out different layers of being queer in the modern world

The Girls Shorts at the Kashish Pride Film Festival was a culmination of six short films that highlighted vulnerability, past trauma resurfacing and the suppression of same sex marriage.

Complejo De Argo, a slice of life Spanish short was the first in line in the Girls Shorts collection. It revolves around a teenage girl named Veronica who is eager to find love. But seeing the trajectory of her life, she only seems to fall in love with middle aged women, which is where the English title of the film ‘Auntie Issues’ is coined from. She now has a crush on her college teacher which continues her list of crushes on aunties. So she decides to introspect on her choice and where it is stemming from. Here’s when she has an epiphany in the middle of a party. There’s a lot that she has to explore and work out in terms of her sexuality and a lot of things that are deep rooted within her. It is a coming of age teen drama where the protagonist is curious about her sexuality and it shows that it is okay to do so instead of conforming to one.

‘I Found My Yellow’ by Shin Thandar and ‘Invitation’ by Panha Theng are two short films that are similar yet different in nature from one another. While they have two lesbian couples as their protagonists, I Found My Yellow is a documentary and Invitation is a fictional story but the core of it all is the struggles they face as a queer couple. I Found My Yellow documents the daily life of a Burmese couple who truthfully share the ups and downs in their relationship. They learn to accept each other’s insecurities and all of this is set against the backdrop of the current repression of the LGBTQIA+ community in Myanmar. Invitation, on the other hand, is also about insecurities and repression but portrayed in a different manner. Van and Nin have been in a relationship for six years but because of Van’s personal battles with her past, because of how brutally she was treated by her family as a teenager, she hasn’t told the world about her relationship. She loves her partner but keeps that limited only to the condo that they live in. In a heartbreaking scene, Nin asks her to just love and accept their relationship, even marriage is not what she is asking for. Both the films make you smile over how cute their equation is but also tug at your heart about how queer couples have this added pressure of dealing with society. Past traumas can haunt your present and these two short films were a pivotal example of that.

Mal De Amores is for all the single ones out there. All of us have been guilty of stalking our ex and Natalia represents us all when we hit rock bottom. After she learns through Instagram that her ex-girlfriend is engaged to a playboy, she goes back into her loop of stalking her on social media and staying in bed for days. Her friends were so done with her self loathing and they called her out for that. She gets into a heated argument with them which leads to them not talking for days. She goes to an AA meeting and tries hooking up with someone else at a club. Nothing works for her but she realizes the void she has in her heart in the absence of friendship. Love heartbreaks are one thing but best friend heartbreaks hurt on a whole other level. Mal De Amores might not have love in the center of the story just like real life. A part of being queer in today’s time also requires having the right kind of friends by your side, the ones who accept you and Natalia sure did have that in abundance.

Seagulls Cut Through the Sky is set in the dense atmosphere of change and union strikes in Porto’s harbor. Clara, who owns a bar, is scared that the strikes will force her to shut shop, finds solace in Raquel’s company, who is a waitress on a cruise ship. The two confide in each other over a night spent together. The sex scenes in the film look artistic, there’s dialogue and narrative that continues between the intimacy. They don’t want to let each other go and the escapism they find with one another is when they want time to stop amidst all the worries around them. 

The last one which was also the most different of all the films shown was Ria Mirchandani’s Unextexted Encounters. The twelve minute short film is told through a phone screen instead of any live action actors because as explained by the director in a Q&A after the screening, our little screens know more about us than anything or anyone else. The protagonist of the film is afraid to put herself out there on dating apps and there’s added pressure from her mother to get married…to a man, and that’s not what she wants to do. She is queer and except for her best friend no one knows about that. She matches with a girl on a dating app and the two hit it off right away. But it is vulnerable to share your feelings with someone and be your truest self. Even though, as an audience, your sexuality might not be the same as the protagonist, the film still feels relatable because everyone feels anxious while opening up to new people.

There is a scene when she opens her notes app and types down everything she wants to say and all of us have been there, done that. The iPhone animations look exactly like real life which also helps you connect with it instantly since we look at our screens so much. The film highlights how a good story can be told just through texts without the help of any big production, actors or extravagant locations and still leave a lasting impression.

Girls Shorts make you realize how diverse and layered women can be all over the world and yet somehow share a major commonality which is to love with all their hearts, no matter what!

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