The Bandra Film Festival (BFF) is screening a couple of films based on sex workers as part of a segment titled ‘Broken but Beautiful’.
One of the two films is Aditya Kripalani’s Tikli And Laxmi Bomb (2019), starring Vibhawari Deshpande, Chitrangada Chakraborty and Saharsh Kumar Shukla, about two sex workers who bring in a revolution for themselves by starting a business.
The other is the Nepali documentary Bahadur: The Accidental Brave. Directed by Aditya Seth, the film is about Nepalese migrant workers who are susceptible to high-risk sexual behaviour and end up contracting HIV.
Speaking about the films, Pooja Kohli Taneja, artistic director at the Bandra Film Festival, said, “'Broken but Beautiful' captures feminism. It is a theme that showcases the lives of perhaps the most oppressed women in our society, yet how empowered they are to really fight the system.
"We are really a lucky lot, to sit back, sip our coffee and talk about feminism. The women who face oppression on a regular basis, standing up for their rights is a very different ball game. Through 'Broken but Beautiful' we would like to salute these women for their exemplary resilience and strength to not only endure but to strive for change.”
The Bandra Film Festival is an online festival on YouTube. Actor Abhay Deol is on its advisory board.