French film Beats Per Minute to open Kashish film fest 2018

French film Beats Per Minute and Indian film Evening Shadows will be the opening and closing films respectively at the ninth edition of the Kashish Mumbai International Queer Film Festival.

The festival, the theme for which this year is 'Together, With Pride', will he held from 23-27 May at the Liberty Carnival Cinemas and Metro Inox in Mumbai.

As many as 140 films from 45 countries will be screened at the festival. These will include 33 Indian LGBTQ films.

"The opening and closing films this year reflect the theme of the festival — 'Together, With Pride'. While the opening film Beats Per Minute highlights the coming together of individuals to fight a common cause, the AIDS epidemic, the closing film Evening Shadows highlights how it is important for family members to come together to support their children," Sridhar Rangayan, festival director, said in a statement.

Written and directed by Robin Campillo, Beats Per Minute is a dramatisation of the early years of the militant AIDS activist group Act Up-Paris.

This film had its world premiere at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival and won the Grand Prix Award. It also won the Best Film at the International Film Festival of India at Goa in 2017.

Evening Shadows had its world premiere in February 2018 at the Sydney Mardigras Film Festival and has been screened in Bengaluru, Los Angeles, and won the Free To Be Me award at Roze Filmdagen, Amsterdam.

"Evening Shadows has already been selected to screen at six more festivals around the world. But this screening in Mumbai is truly special for the team, as it is for home audiences. We are looking forward to the Indian LGBTQ community and their families to embrace our film and the empowering message it gives out about acceptance of children by their families", said Saagar Gupta, creative director, writer and producer.