Dunno Y ... Na Jaane Kyun, a film featuring India’s first cinematic gay kiss, is scheduled to go on general release within weeks.
Already dubbed India’s answer to Brokeback Mountain, it tells the story of an aspiring model who travels to Mumbai, India’s commercial and film capital, to seek his fortune and enters into a homosexual relationship, in part to further his career.
Trailers of the film have been well received by activists.
“It looks good,” said Ashok Row Kavi, editor of Bombay Dost, India’s first gay magazine. “It talks of the complexities [of being gay] in India. Taboos are still very strong and hopefully it will change things.”
For decades, Bollywood avoided graphic depictions of even heterosexual kisses, with films famously cutting away to images of budding flowers, breaking waves or crashing waterfalls at the crucial moment.
Earlier this year a film called Love Sex aur Dhokha, which included relatively graphic scenes of heterosexual sex, was released. Though there was much media debate, the film generated little public outrage, encouraging those seeking to draw the largely formulaic Indian film industry in new directions. However the most explicit sequences in the film were cut or altered by censors.
“The sexual revolution has been under way in Bollywood for half a decade,” film critic and author Anupama Chopra said. “Kissing is now fairly acceptable for most of the younger stars. The younger directors are responding to an evolving audience.”
However, homosexuality remains taboo. The nearest Bollywood has got to portraying same-sex relationships so far is the 2008 film Dostana, which showed two straight men pretending to be gay to persuade a landlady to allow her beautiful daughter to be their housemate. At the end of the film, as a punishment, they kiss.
“It was a comedy, but did involve big names playing effeminate men on screen,” Chopra said.
Last week, a gay film festival in Mumbai attracted big crowds.
“From India alone there are 25 films. I thought not many queer films were made in India,” the festival director, Sridhar Rangayan, told DNA newspaper.
The committee was careful about their selection, however.
“We don’t want to hurt the Indian sensibility. We had to discard 30 films for various reasons,” Rangayan said.
Gay activists fear Dunno Y will provoke a backlash from religious and political conservatives, many of whom opposed the recent effective repeal of colonial-era Indian laws that made homosexuality punishable by up to 10 years in prison as a crime “against nature.”
Promotional posters for Dunno Y ... Na Jaane Kyun showing two semi-naked young men embracing did spark controversy last year.
The film’s director, Sanjay Sharma, told the BBC recently that Indian cinemagoers were “mature enough” to deal with the storyline.
“At the moment I’m not thinking about any political or censor problems,” Sharma said.
Sharma’s brother Kapil, who plays the lead, said Indian audiences were ready to accept homosexuality on screen. Change, however, is slow.
“We are still a very long way from seeing a mainstream major star play a gay role and that, we won’t see that soon,” Chopra said.
BEIJING FORUM: ‘So-called freedom of navigation advocated by certain countries outside the region challenges the norms of international relations,’ the minister said Chinese Minister of National Defense Dong Jun (董軍) yesterday denounced “hegemonic logic and acts of bullying” during remarks at a Beijing forum that were full of thinly veiled references to the US. Organizers said that about 1,800 representatives from 100 countries, including political, military and academic leaders, were in Beijing for the Xiangshan Forum. The three-day event comes as China presents itself as a mediator of fraught global issues including the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. Addressing attendees at the opening ceremony, Dong warned of “new threats and challenges” now facing world peace. “While the themes of the times — peace and development —
Decked out with fake crystal chandeliers and velvet sofas, cosmetic surgery clinics in Afghanistan’s capital are a world away from the austerity of Taliban rule, where Botox, lip filler and hair transplants reign. Despite the Taliban authorities’ strict theocratic rule, and prevailing conservatism and poverty in Afghanistan, the 20 or so clinics in Kabul have flourished since the end of decades of war in the country. Foreign doctors, especially from Turkey, travel to Kabul to train Afghans, who equally undertake internships in Istanbul, while equipment is imported from Asia or Europe. In the waiting rooms, the clientele is often well-off and includes men
BRIBERY ALLEGATIONS: A prosecutor said they considered the risk of Hak-ja Han tampering with evidence to be very high, which led them to seek the warrant South Korean prosecutors yesterday requested an arrest warrant for the leader of the Unification Church, Hak-ja Han, on allegations of bribery linked to the country’s former first lady and incitement to destroy evidence. The move came a day after the 82-year-old was questioned over her alleged role in bribing former first lady Kim Keon-hee and a lawmaker. Founded in 1954 by her late husband, Sun Myung Moon, the Unification Church has long been the subject of controversy and criticism, with its teachings centered on Moon’s role as the “second coming” and its mass weddings. Followers are derisively referred to as “Moonies.” However, the church’s
Venezuela on Saturday organized a day of military training for civilians in response to the US deployment in the Caribbean, and amid new threats from US President Donald Trump. About a month ago, Washington deployed warships to international waters off Venezuela’s coast, backed by F-35 jets sent to Puerto Rico in what it calls an anti-drug and anti-terrorism operation. Venezuelan Minister of Defense Vladimir Padrino Lopez has accused Washington of waging “undeclared war” in the Caribbean, after US strikes killed over a dozen alleged drug traffickers off his country’s coast. Caracas also accused the US of seeking regime change, and
RSS