The Bioscopia Trans and Queer Film Festival concluded at Basusree Cinema on Sunday after two days of a packed programme of fiction films, documentaries, animation and theatre.
Held on 13 and 14 December, the festival drew audiences from the city’s LGBTQIA+ community, students, filmmakers and allies.
The festival featured 20 films in Tamil, Bengali, Hindi, Marathi, Assamese languages. The titles included Blue Sunshine by Samyuktha Vijayan, Debalina Majumder’s documentary Friends of Jilipibala, and Leena Manimekalai’s feature Maadathy, An Unfairy Tale.
The opening day also included a theatre performance titled Yonikahon, drawing creative inspiration from The Vagina Monologues.
Day two continued with a mix of short films and longer documentaries, including What If I Tell You by Teenaa Kaur and the feature-length documentary I Am Revathi by Abhijith P.
The festival closed with the screening of Kaathal – The Core, directed by Jeo Baby, after a formal closing ceremony on Sunday evening.
Bioscopia was presented by Sappho for Equality, a Kolkata-based organisation that has worked for over two decades on issues affecting queer, trans and non-binary individuals, particularly those assigned female at birth. The event is supported by Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan Kolkata.
“Bioscopia is a transitional yet deeply intentional offering from Sappho for Equality, a temporary home for queer and trans cinema in Kolkata during a year of organisational reflection and rebuilding. Emerging from the long legacy of DIALOGUES, it holds the emotional, political, and cultural weight that this festival has carried for over eighteen years: the weight of gathering, of returning, of watching ourselves and each other in the flicker of moving images,” the organisers said in a statement.