In the third week of the SASOD film festival, Painting the Spectrum 6, at the Sidewalk Café, films will be screened which deal with a range of issues related to their lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender subjects.
Next Monday’s offering is three films which challenge the mainstream notion of beauty. The first, Chubb Rubb: A Fat Cabaret is a short documentary of Toronto’s Fat Femme Mafia who have been vocal about the issues of size. The second, Circus Geeks and Sideshow Freaks, features a circus clown duo who uses the circus to show that “freaks” could be portrayed as positive. The third, Bahar is from Turkey and is about a Turkish transsexual who goes through different times as part of the transition.
On Tuesday, Not that Kind of Christian is screened with Jagadamba, Mother of the Universe to show how faith and spirituality are used to oppress and to heal. In Jagadamba, Amber Field who lived in many countries uses music to strengthen her spirituality. In Not that Kind of Christian Andrew Grossman brings together a number of major players in the Anglican sexuality debate, each of them representing a different place on the spectrum of sexuality and religion.
On Wednesday, the festival moves back to India. The short film Bomgay (starring Rahul Bose who went on to star in Mr & Mrs Iyer) will be screened. It is based on a collection of poems by Indian writer R. Raj Rao and present multi-layered portrait of gay life in Bombay/Mumbai. The second film is Sridhar Rangayan’s 68 Pages. In the 68 Pages of her diary, an HIV/AIDS counsellor records the pain and joy of her work, and her clients’ despair and hope, their tears and laughter. The lives of her five clients, from high-risk groups such as heterosexual sex worker, drug user, gay and transgender, change dramatically when they are confronted with their seroconversion. Their life-affirming stories of courage and resilience are a tribute to the human spirit.
As usual admission is free and films start at 7 pm. All films are intended for mature audiences.
