The European Parliament’s Intergroup on LGBT Rights has granted us the Get Organized and Visible Award for our work towards equality for Lesbian, Bisexual women and Transmen in Eastern India.

http://ilga2012.org/go-visible-award-to-india-saint-lucia-and-zimbabwe/

VENUE: MAX MUELLER BHAVAN,   8 BULLYGUNGE CIRCULAR ROAD, KOLKATA – 700019

Free entry passes are being distributed from 20.11.2012 at the venue during 12 pm-6 pm.

Limited seats!

Hurry!

Collect your passes!

DECEMBER 16 – 18, 2011

ORGANISED BY SAPPHO FOR EQUALITY AND PRATYAY GENDER TRUST

IN COLLABORATION WITH

Goethe-Institut Kolkata
Max Mueller Bhavan
8, Ballygunge Circular Road
Kolkata 700019, India

Welcome to Calcutta’s very own film festival that celebrates different expressions of sexuality and gender. This is the fifth time the festival is going to   take place in the city.

 For the past four years, DIALOGUES- Annual Calcutta Lesbian Gay Bisexual & Transgender Film & Video Festival has contributed to the much-cherished film viewing culture of Calcutta by supporting the works of lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer and transgender artists, and by providing a much-needed cultural outlet for these communities in Calcutta and India.

Organised by Sappho for Equality and Pratyay Gender Trust, the Festival this year is being organised in collaboration with Goethe Institute/Max Mueller Bhavan Kolkata.

The Annual Calcutta Lesbian Gay Bisexual & Transgender Film & Video Festival typically highlights major feature films of interest to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities. DIALOGUES strives to become a space that provides a venue for independent film and video from India and abroad that challenge our notions of sexualities and genders. In its four-year history, apart from featuring contemporary and classic world class lesbian gay bisexual & transgender feature films, DIALOGUES has also screened some interesting Indian shorts, and videos from experimental, amateur and professional filmmakers from India.

 Festival Highlights: 

 NATIONAL AWARD WINNING DOCUMENTARY ‘THE BOXING LADIES’ to be screened

 9 SHORT FILMS FROM BERLIN FILM FESTIVAL TO BE SCREENED

 A Selection of 9 Short Films from one of our Special Partners this year – Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin – to be screened exclusively and for the first time in India at DIALOGUES2011: Annual Calcutta Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Film & Video Festival.

 These include:

TOMORROW EVERYTHING WILL BE ALRIGHT (2010)
Dir : Akram Zaatari
Screened at Berlinale in 2011 

THE ISLAND (2008)
Dir : Trevor Anderson
Screened at Berlinale in 2009 

BONNE MERE (2008)
Dir : Maxime Desmons
Screened at Berlinale in 2008 

INTERSECTIONS OF QUEER CINEMA WITHIN BROADER ISSUES SUCH AS DISABILTY

Double The Trouble Twice The Fun by Pratibha Parmar (1991)

Winner of the Audience Award for Best Documentary Short at the Frameline Film and Video Festival in San Francisco. June 1991

In association with the International Disability Film Festival, Double the Trouble… embraces a subject rarely addressed in our culture or media: the representation of sexuality for those with physical and learning disabilities. Bringing together dramas, documentaries and short films, this collection challenges the preconceptions of the able-bodied and demonstrates that disability is not an automatic bar to a very healthy sex life.

OTHER ACCLAIMED DOCUMENTARIES & FEATURE FILMS CONFIRMED SO FAR:

1.       Searching 4 Sandeep by Poppy Stockell (2007)

 Searching 4 Sandeep is a really sweet documentary about finding love online. One day 28-year-old Poppy Stockell decided that it had been too long since she last had a girlfriend. Slightly intimidated by the new kind of hip lesbian with stylish haircuts and fashionable clothes in Sydney’s bars she thought she’d give online dating a chance.

Poppy started to record her experiences and wanted to make them into a documentary about online dating in general. The story became more personal, however, when she started chatting and falling in love with Sandeep, who lived on the other side of the planet, in England. But this was not the only thing separating the two women. Sandeep is the oldest of four sisters and at 31 is still living at home with her conservative Sikh parents. She isn’t out to any of them.

Humorous and thoughtful, Searching 4 Sandeep explores the collision of love and ethnic, religious, and sexual identity. Filmmaker Stockell raises serious questions about a new kind of global romance at odds with the cultural, social, and geographical distances between people. Will Sandeep’s family overcome their homophobia? Will the star-crossed lovers surmount the obstacles separating them? Through raw, incredibly frank footage, Searching 4 Sandeep follows the couple’s tumultuous relationship across two years, and three continents, in a touching examination of sexuality, religion, globalization, and culture seen through the lens of this uniquely modern love story.

 Awards won by this film are  2007 Sydney Film Festival’s World Movies Channel Audience Award, The World of Women Film Festival’s Best Documentary and Audience Award and more.

 2.       I can’t Think Straight by Shamim Sarif (2007)

Shamim Sarif’s autobiographical novel serves as the inspiration for this film directed by the author, and concerning two women from deeply diverse backgrounds who discover that the love between them is too powerful to deny. Tala (Lisa Ray) is a London-based Jordanian of Palestinian descent. She’s a spirited Christian in the midst of planning her wedding to her handsome Jordanian fiancé. Leyla (Sheetal Sheth) is a shy Muslim who’s currently dating Leyla’s best friend, Ali. Brought together by chance, Tala and Leyla form a slow bond that grows deeper with every minute they spend together. Eventually, the two girls reveal their true feelings to one another, and realize that they have fallen in love.

The film is the recipient of 11 International Awards. 

 3.       Transamerica by Duncan Tucker (2005)

 A film that’s all about family, “Transamerica” deftly addresses a delicate topic without ever digressing into campiness or making a parody out of the film’s subject matter.

 Writer/director Duncan Tucker sets the bar incredibly high with this his feature film debut. Tucker’s “Transamerica” takes the so-called normal dynamics of a family and adds a few delicious twists. A father receives a phone call informing him his son’s in a New York jail. Up until the phone call, the man had no idea he fathered a child. That’s a twist we’ve seen before however in “Transamerica,” the long-lost dad is a transgender woman now named Bree who’s days away from having the genital operation which will in essence be the final step in the long process of becoming a woman.

Felicity Huffman is absolutely brilliant as a pre-op male to female transsexual forced to take a cross-country road trip with the son she never knew she had in the smart, touching dramedy, “Transamerica.” The film won more than 10 International Film Awards in 2005/2006 in various film festivals throughout the world including Academy Award for the Best Actress in 2006.

 4.       Elena Undone  by Nicole Conn (2010)

 With a healthy dose of captivating drama and passionate sex and romance, “Elena Undone” combines the enchantment of falling in love for the first time with the reality and resposibilities of long-term commitments.

Before crossing paths with Peyton, falling for a woman was an unimaginable situation for Elena, a straight wife and mother. The friendship between Peyton, an out lesbian writer, and Elena, the wife of an anti-gay paster who has never experienced true love, transforms swiftly from a one-sided crush into a torrid extramarital affair. Despite their attraction, Peyton, jaded in a number of ways, has strong reservations about becoming involved with a married straight woman; Elena, recognizing that she is caught in a loveless marriage, can barely begin to rationalize the nature and magnitude of her desires.

As their relationship evolves, Elena confronts the choice of leaving her husband or ending her involvement with Peyton to save her unraveling and unrewarding marriage and return to a drab and automated life. Above all, Elena faces the looming challenge of convincing Peyton that the two women have a bright future together despite their unfavorable circumstances.
Writer/Director Nicole Conn confidently tackles issues of religion, sex, family and commitment in this contemporary story about star-crossed lovers and the walls between them.
The film has been screened at more than 22 International Film Festivals across the globe in 2010-2011. 

SCHEDULE OF DIALOGUES – Annual Calcutta Lesbian Gay Bisexual & Transgender Film & Video Festival  2011

Please click on the link below for the film schedule (with synopses)

http://issuu.com/dialogues/docs/dialogues2011_detailed_schedule

FREE PASSES WILL BE DISTRIBUTED ON FIRST COME FIRST SERVED BASIS FROM  12.12.2011  DURING  12-5 PM AT THE FESTIVAL VENUE

 Goethe-Institut Kolkata
Max Mueller Bhavan
8, Ballygunge Circular Road
Kolkata 700019, India
Phone: +91 33 2486-6398, 2486-6424

FOR DETAILS PLEASE CONTACT 09831518320 (10AM-9PM) or 03324419995 (12-8 PM)

(non)normativity … nevertheless!

National Queer Conference

23^rd to 25^th September 2011

Organized by Sappho for Equality

Anita Banerjee Memorial Hall

Jadavpur University

Kolkata

Concept note

Normativity or the absence of it has intrigued the thinking person’s mind since these terms were first coined. We all had begun with the understanding of non-normative as the gender/sexual ‘deviant’, who cannot be stereotyped within the binary understandings of the ‘normative’ society. It normatively meant the LGBTIKQ, but in today’s context, the umbrella term LGBTIKQ is under question and so are the non-normative characteristics.

We, at Sappho for Equality on the other hand, have raised questions as to how normative is the ‘taken for granted’ non-normative? And what is the notional normative? Is it that the society, the state, the mindset of a certain milieu, determines normativity or its absence? Is it a cultural construct? Is it temporal? Does the given non-normative actually carry a very structured normative boundary within?

We have raised questions and we want not just answers but a flow of understanding, exchange of thoughts, sharing of ideas and emergence of a new cult!

Calling all interested individuals, groups, students, activists, young professionals, academicians to think, challenge and rewrite (non)normativity. To bring out the binary bondage of the supposedly non-normative and to unearth the potential non-normative wrongly bound within normative expressions.

It is a conference to experiment with your wackiest ideas and consolidate your structured-most expressions towards a kaleidoscopic understanding of (non)normativity. We welcome you all to create some challenging ideas that will change the whole notion of (non)normativity for all of us!

We have developed a few sub themes so that you are able to channelize your thoughts better.

Sub-theme 1: Understanding (non)normativity: In this section we would be looking at papers that deal with historical, sociological and cultural theories related to (non)normativity in an attempt to challenge the existing and create a more comprehensive definition.

Sub-theme 2: Politicizing (non)normativity: In this section papers on the politics around (non)normativity, its usage in the social sector, and critique of the existing understanding could be presented.

Sub-theme 3: Gendering (non)normativity: In this section (non)normativity within the gender binary and how the idea of ‘variant’ has arrived, could be discussed. Questioning the existing binary and recreating cultural practices can also be a part of this sub theme.

Sub-theme 4: Sexualizing (non)normativity. This is a section where (non)normativity will be bounced against sexuality, sexual practices, sexual relationships, and the (non)normative process of sexualisation of an individual, could be discussed.

Sub-theme 5: Living (non)normativity. In this section, real life (non)normativity will be discussed and challenged.

Sub theme 6: Performing (non)normativity. In this section creative expressions of (non)normativity will be portrayed and discussed. These may include short films, dramatic expressions, poster presentation or musicals or any other creative expression that brings out/challenges/defines/defies (non)normativity.

Media plays an important role in controlling the social psyche. Media and its usage can, therefore, be included in every sub-theme.

Conference language is English, but Hindi as the national language and Bangla as the regional language can be included especially for sub-theme 6. But presenters would be requested to provide the organizers English translation of their presentations well in advance for circulation if their paper is selected. Each presenter will get 15 minutes to present her/his paper or performance which will be followed by a 15 minutes discussion.

Please send your 500 words abstract on or before 6th August 2011, on any sub theme (not more than two; only one will be selected) to sapphoqueerconference@gmail.com and join the gang!

Selected presenters will be provided with free accommodation and travel (AC 3-tier train fare) expenses. There is no registration fee for participation. You can also register as non-presenter participant of the conference. For that please mail to sapphoqueerconference@gmail.com by 6^th August 2011, since number of seats is limited. For outstation non-presenter participants, unfortunately, we will not be able to arrange for accommodation and travel due to constraint of funds.

Sappho for Equality & Pratyay Gender Trust present
DIALOGUES – Annual Calcutta Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Film & Video Festival 2009
June 12-14 at Max Mueller Bhavan, Kolkata.
For entry passes contact 033 24419995, 09831518320

An Exhibition “Excavation of Feminine Memories” (12th -14th June at Max Mueller Bhavan, Kolkata) on imageries of Homo-erotic Love in Ancient Indian Tradition by Giti Thadani in partnership with Sappho for Equality and Pratyay Gender Trust.

Giti Thadani, a radical lesbian activist, visual artist, photographer and a Delhi-based independent researcher, is excavating the concealed tapestry of feminine kinship, genealogy and sexual or erotic bonding between women in ancient Indian traditions. She traveled across the country over the last 25 years and photographed temples and images of the goddess. 20 of those images are the part of this exhibition. The exhibition presentation is a poetic photographic journey into the archetypal philosophies and cosmologies of the Shaktic feminine through a dramatic interplay of visuals depicting same–sex erotica. She says, “Homosexuality is very much part and parcel of Indic histories. In fact there were many celebratory traditions that celebrated it. There is ample iconography and textual material to prove this. What however is important is that these histories have been ignored, ravaged by different monotheistic invasions. Further these histories have for the most part been written from a completely heterosexual point of view – whether coming from the hindutva, orientalist or even what poses as the ‘secular’ academic. In effect the technique of othering homosexuality as ‘western’ is not unique to India. Most patriarchal cultures will invisibilize their own homosexual traditions and then blame it on the ‘other’.

On Friday, June 12, 2009 [3.00PM – 3.30PM]: Inauguration of Exhibition “Excavation of Feminine Memories”