June 8, 2019: Stage lit with fancy fairy lights and talent in abundance, the city witnessed a very special film festival organized by Blued, an app dedicated to the GBTQIA community, this weekend.
Touted as the Blued Queer Flicks, an array of short films revolving around the queer themes were presented and awarded at the event. Delegates from HIV Alliance, Humsafar, LakshyaTrust, IGNOU University also attended the event and a panel discussion was organized to discuss about the representation of LGBTQ community in art and cinema.
Out of 10 shortlisted movies, 5 were chosen as winners. Sumit Pawar and Shruti Kulkarni shared the first position, whereas Praveen Vinzz, Yadavendra Singh and Naveen Tokas won the second, third and fourth position. Their movies were based on different queer themes like struggles, love, fun, education and society perception.
The panel discussion about representation of the community in art and cinema brought forward a range of issues caused due to the persistent mindset of the people. The unfortunate fact that those from queer community are presented with lesser opportunities and they are kept restricted to a certain sort of roles. The discussion headed towards finding possible solutions to curb the situation.
Blued commenced the Blued Queer Flicks campaign online with an open call for submission of movies themed around various aspects of the LGBTQI community. The independent filmmakers, mostly budding artists made the entries. The shortlisted ten were uploaded on Blued app for viewers, from which the final five were screened at the event.
The campaign was designed with an aim to provide a platform to up-and-coming short filmmakers who want to raise concern over LGBTQI community issues and inform masses through their visual content.
Addressing the delegates and the attendees, Mr. Sanyam Sharma, Marketing Director of Blued India said, “The LGBTQIA community has made a positive shift in India in the last few years and emerged with a strong voice and opinion regarding the issues faced by them in the past. It’s time that they had a voice and what will be a better way to portray it than through films which will be showcased to the masses at a digital platform like Blued and got a chance to be awarded as a motivation factor. Our focus has always been to promote the community and encourage these
voices and talent that needs to be heard. Through Blued, we want to have an open dialogue, not with just the community but those who have a wrong opinion about them. We hope to see more participation next year from India and share their views on a global platform like Blued.”
Boiler Plate: Blued is a global social network app for the gay community. Founded by Ma Baoli (Geng Le), the app was launched in 2012 and now counts 40 million users across the world. Available on both Android and iOS, it has features like nearby profiles detection, live broadcasting, a post timeline, and group conversations. Blued is not only a dating application but also a social network for those belonging to GBTQIA.
