Final Call for EntriesThe Bangalore Queer Film Festival 2022 is still open for submissions!
Festival Dates: 22-24 July, 2022
Deadline for entries: 10th June, 2022
Contact us at: blrqueerfilmfest@gmail.com

We invite you to send us your short and full-length features, short and long documentaries, animation and experimental films. Please find the guidelines for submission following the recap.

BQFF 2019 and 2020 RECAP

BQFF 2019 was the 10th anniversary of the festival and it was five days of mad love with film screenings, performances, art exhibitions and panel discussions held at the Alliance Française de Bengaluru and Goethe Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan. While BQFF 2020 was a quieter affair than our riotous 10th anniversary edition in 2019, it brought our gaze firmly back to the screen with a fantastic lineup of films from across the world. The Indian features included two Tamizh films, Swarnavel Eswaran’s sweet rural-coastal lesbian drama Kattumaram and Arunkumar Senthil’s multi-narrative Coffee Café, which included all the queer characters one could dream of. For the first time the festival showcased a feature film from Assam, Pranjal Deka’s Junaki Porua (Fireflies), on quiet lives and the dreams they encase. From the international scene we watched Garin Nugroho’s Memories of My Body, on an Indonesian young man’s discovery of himself through dance and performance; Martyr, Mazen Khaled’s moving Lebanese film about death, powerlessness and friendship; and Marco Berger’s The Blonde One, an Argentinian feature on how intimacy grows between men.

The festival had a special treat in store for its audience in 2020: a 100 year old German silent film, Anders als die Andern, made in 1919 by Richard Oswald. This was part of the Goethe Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan package, which also included Sabine Bernardi’s Romeos and Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Fox and His Friends.

As usual, the festival showcased short films and documentaries that were in no way less captivating than the features. From Manipur we watched Haobam Paban Kumar’s Nupishabi, on women impersonators at the Sumang Leela performances. From Bengal came Gay India Matrimony by Debalina, a favourite at BQFF. Evans Chan gave us Love and Death in Montmarte, tracing the life and spirit of Taiwanese writer Qiu Miaojin, and in The Sisterhood: Visits with My Friends we were allowed to follow Feebee Lee Von Diamond and Roger Horn’s camera into the inner lives of trans women on a wine estate in South Africa.

Indian short films included Notary by Pooja Sampath, Blackhead (Lakshmi Marikar), Ladli (Sudipta Kundu), The Last Letter (Vishal Jejurkar), One Standing Night (Ashutosh S Shankar), and Phobia (Srinivas Kuruganti). There were many lovely shorts from the Philippines – The Boy Who Bleeds in the Middle of the Sea (James Allen Fajardo), Siguro, Baka, Pwede (Yvette Mijares), Duruko (Elijah Japeth Macatiag) and Girly is in control of her life (Gilb Baldoza). Asian films from other regions included Once (Taiwan, Hsieh Li-Ling), and Sunken Plum (China, Roberto F Canuto and Xu Xiaoxi) and Femitopia (Hong Kong, Chai Wai Ting). From the USA came films from two other festival favourites, Shine Louise Houston (Camera and I) and Madsen Minax (The Eddies).

The festival performance slot showcased slam-bam-thank you-man!, a dramatised reading led by playwright esthappen s.

So after an enforced one-year break, and because we couldn’t really bear to do this online during the slow-burning apocalypse of COVID-19, we hope to be back to make some noise!

Please send us your entries and pass this call on to friends, lovers, family and colleagues who might want to send in theirs. The deadline for submission is 15th June, 2022. The final schedule of films will be released in mid July, 2022.

The festival loves independent films that transform ideas of queerness, so send the call out! We specially encourage independent films and amateur work that want to try new things with cinema and queerness.

GUIDELINES FOR SUBMISSION:

Films
We accept films made by directors on themes related to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and other queer populations. Films that challenge traditional gender and sex / sexuality notions are welcome.

Genres
Please submit films of any form: Features, Shorts, Documentaries, Animation or Experimental.

Preview copies
Submit preview copies of full films online (via the form you can submit vimeo or youtube links, share or send via Dropbox or similar file transfers) or by sending us the DVD copies to our address. Preview copies submitted for selection will not be returned. Copies of all films will be kept with the BQFF Archives.

Format of Final Submission
Final submissions are expected in the form of high resolution files or high quality DVDs only. Contact the organisers if you require more information or want to use other formats.

Subtitles
Since accents vary even among English language films, all films should preferably have subtitles in English.

Submission/mailing costs
Mailing costs for the submissions have to be borne by the director/producer/distributor. The BQFF cannot, at this juncture, support the costs of receiving copies for preview. Please contact the organisers if you are unable to bear these costs so as to arrange for alternative ways to send your films to us.

Screening Costs
As always the BQFF is a FREE event and no charges are levied on submissions. Additionally, only films that do not charge screening fees will be accepted.

You can submit your film via the form below.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe3GKnXhaV5LktpeuopkULDHzXbvtnqv1JSfdZxM7dE_Z6lPg/viewform