Sandip Soparkar, Shanti Priya, Sharbani Mukherjee and Arti Nagpal were among judges of the recently concluded Glance Queer Film Festival 2022 that was organized by Krishna Kumar, Arun Kumar, powered by Glance Productions and its supporting partner Color Positive Foundation, Community Partner – The QKnit Foundation and the Streaming Partner being MoviePride.
Krishna Kumar and Arun Kumar Sharma felt that the LGBT community faces several difficulties, hence they came forward to support it with the Glance Queer Film Festival (GQFF) where 23 wonderful films from all around the world were screened. Among the jury members were several Bollywood celebrities like Choreographer Sandip Soparkar, actresses Shanti Priya, Sharbani Mukherjee and Arti Nagpal, filmmaker Ram Kamal Mukherjee, costume designer Raja Sharifi, Human rights youth activist Rumi Sharma, Colour Positive Foundation’s brand ambassador Ganga, writer – director Vinod Kumar Singh, filmmaker Sapan Mular, actor Arpit and lyricist Kartika Nainan Dubey.
While filmmaker Ram Kamal Mukherjee lauded Krishna Kumar and Arun Sharma for organizing the first ever Glance Queer Film Festival, “I appreciate the efforts of filmmakers with producing such great content and some of World’s finest films on the LGBT community that were selected and I feel proud to be a part of this event. I wish that this festival is held regularly every year,” he said. Actress Shantipriya expressed happiness for being honoured to watch such beautiful films as a jury member.
“Media and cinema play a significant part in changing the way of thinking of the society. In the erstwhile era the LGBT characters were usually depicted in a comical manner in our films, be it a transgender or a gay character. Now things have changed and the LGBT films and characters portray a strong content. This is a very positive sign,” observed jury member Ganga.
Sandip Soparkar thanked the GQFF for coming up with beautiful films. “We have been treated with about 2 dozen films from various countries and several languages with each of them having a message. It is very important that such specific film festivals are instrumental in conveying a message to the society,” he said.
Arti Nagpal felt that finally the LGBT community has been depicted with seriousness and respect in the films which are a celebration in itself. “We watched films in Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi and other international languages. I had a wonderful day watching such splendid films with the esteemed jury,” Arti commented.
Sharbani Mukherjee expressed her desire to regularly be a part of this film festival saying, “It is important to let the world know what hindrances the LGBT community has to go through, that is achieved successfully by this film festival.”
Krishna Kumar and Arun Sharma hinted at establishing the GQFF Awards in Mumbai and their plans of launching an OTT platform – Movie Pride on 6th of September that will be dedicated exclusively for LGBTQIA+ content featuring films, short videos and interviews with live sessions that will be entertaining as well as educative. They have already assimilated a bank of about 100 films. Movie Pride is the brain child of Arun Sharma who is into logistics business and is actively promoting creative musicians, singers and artistes.
Also associated with the inaugural GQFF are LGBT activist Nishita Bhamre, Social activist Savio Masceranhas and Bhakti Sabris.
