Heartening to see greater representation of queer people on screen, says filmmaker Kiran Rao

MUMBAI: Filmmaker Kiran Rao says it is heartening to see LGBTQ stories finding space in mainstream filmmaking, even though the progress has been quite slow.

The “Laapataa Ladies” director serves as a jury member for the narrative segment of the upcoming edition of Kashish Pride Film Festival, South Asia’s biggest LGBTQ+ film festival.

Rao said the representation of queer people in films and web series has increased but more needs to be done.

“There’s a long way to go before we can stop having to speak about queer issues with this specifically separate lens…But it’s slowly happening, as we can see in many shows on OTT, there’s a much greater representation of queer people and a more diverse representation, which is very heartening for filmmakers like me and in general, for us as Indians, because this is something I feel we should all be sensitive to.

“We all need to sort of grow and evolve as a society to not have to box people into this other kind of segment,” the director told PTI on the sidelines of an event here on Wednesday evening.

In some ways, cinema is a reflection of society, which needs to evolve with time, she said.

“It’s wonderful that so much has changed in the last two decades in our country.”

The 15th edition of the Kashish Pride Film Festival will be held from May 15 to 19 at Liberty Cinema, Alliance Française de Bombay and Cinepolis (Andheri West).

Sridhar Rangayan serves as festival director.

During the festival, 133 films from 46 countries across categories will be showcased.

The line-up also includes 10 films from transgender filmmakers.