7 months ago
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The Queer Women Collective (QWC), a Hyderabad-based initiative, is gearing up to big the 2nd variation of Queer Indie Film and Lit Fest (QIFLIF) connected October 12, astatine Prasad Labs. The festival celebrates queer storytelling, creation and performance.
The 2024 variation drew implicit 300 attendees and this year, the festival is supported by Queer Nilayam, Society for Transgender Action and Rights (STAR), and Queer-Trans Wellness and Support Center (QT Center). The lawsuit volition tally from 10.30 a.m. to 9 p.m.
What to expect
The festival’s line-up includes a assortment of originative events. There volition beryllium 9 movie screenings, the motorboat of the publication Surviving Loudly by Supriyo Chakraborty, an LGBTQIA+ rights advocator and matrimony equality petitioner, and an array of performances , including music, stand-up comedy, poetry, dance, and storytelling.
A unrecorded performance volition diagnostic artists specified arsenic Nique, Nihar, and Atulya. Additionally, the festival volition big an Art Exhibit and a flea marketplace with implicit 40 queer and ally-led brands. The docket besides features a chat amusement titled ‘Queer History of Hyderabad’.
Speaking to The Hindu, Apoorva Gupta, Founder of QIFLIF and QWC, shared the idiosyncratic travel that led to the initiative. Gupta, who comes from Bhopal, felt a idiosyncratic request for a assemblage arsenic a queer woman. She recounted how, upon moving to Hyderabad, she attended protests and dharnas but avoided parties, which seldom had immoderate queer women representation.
The turning constituent was during COVID-19. “A batch of queer women were facing challenges due to the fact that they went backmost to their homes” and needed a harmless spot to talk. QWC began with Zoom unfastened mics, which transitioned into 3 to 4 hours of conversation. “We did our archetypal one-hour open-mic lawsuit present successful Hyderabad, and we had astir 50 radical turning up, astir of them queer women,” Gupta recalled. This acquisition solidified the content that radical request this space, not conscionable to talk, but privation to travel and beryllium there.
The halfway theme
Storytelling is the halfway taxable of the QIFLIF festival, utilized to physique empathy and visibility. This is achieved done divers forms including films, books, discussions, euphony and dance. “As QIFLIF grows, we are archiving voices, reclaiming spaces and shaping section narratives,” she said.
The assemblage actively spotlights queer artists, peculiarly trans assemblage members and queer women, though practice is from crossed the spectrum. The main criteria is that radical from the LGBTQIA+ assemblage are connected the stage. Gupta besides highlighted the value of allies, who amusement solidarity by attending and mounting up stalls.
