KASHISH 2024 to host ‘Fire’side chat with Deepa Mehta

The 15th edition of KASHISH Pride Film Festival is immensely proud to announce that internationally acclaimed 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 LGBTQ+ film festival in Mumbai on May 18th, 2024 at Liberty Cinema.

Festival director Sridhar Rangayan is overjoyed by this opportunity and exclaims, “We have wanted to host Deepa Mehta at KASHISH for many years and now the dreams has 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 that will crackle, with these two indomitable women, in conversation with the amazing Meenakshi Sheede”.

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 judgements that folks hold against same-sex love between women, I Am Sirat, a doc made 26 years later is about a transgender who awaits 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 giving us the opportunity to dwell upon this basic truth”.

National award winning actor & director 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 also come a long way since then. KASHISH is a testament to that. Personally, for me, it began my exploration and commitment to calling out 'othering' that we have so normalised. I have tried to find ways of addressing 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 will celebrate 26 years of the release of the film Fire, directed by Deepa Mehta by facilitating a fireside chat with her and acclaimed actor & director Nandita Das, in conversation with noted film critic & curator Meenakshi Shedde. This event is also scheduled on May 18th from 4.30pm to 5.30pm at Liberty Cinema. This discussion, supported by the Consulate General of Canada attempts to unpack the beginnings of the LGBTQ+ movement in Idnia with the release of the film Fire in 1998 and track forward to what the current scenario is for LGBTQ+ rights, but more importantly the representation of LGBTQ+ characters in cinema and web series, both in India and in Canada.

‘I am Sirat’, co-directed by her alongwith Sirat, a transgender person in New Delhi on which life the documentary is based, premiered at Toronto International Film Festival, and has been gaining acclaim across the world. Both Deepa Mehta and Sirat will be present at KASHISH 2024 to present the film and interact with the audiences.