Boys is Best Film and Trans* actor Kristina Hernandez wins Best Actor at KASHISH 2015
Shiana NC and Dalip Tahil give away awards at South Asia’s biggest LGBT film festival.
Dutch coming of age film Boys (Jongens) directed by Mischa Kamp won the Best Narrative Feature Film award, while Trans* actor Kristina Hernandez won the award for the Best Performance in a Lead Role for the film Stealth at the 6th edition of KASHISH Mumbai International Queer Film Festival – South Asia’s biggest and India’s only mainstream LGBT film festival. The winners were announced at a glittering award ceremony at Mumbai’s iconic art deco theatre Liberty Cinema on Sunday, May 31, 2015 evening.
The Best Film wins a cash award of Rs 30,000 and the Best Actor wins a cash prize of Rs 20,000 – both sponsored by Anupam Kher’s Actor Prepares.
The Best Indian Short Narrative Film award was shared by two films – the Marathi filmSundar directed by Rohan Kanawade and the Tamil film A Full Stop That Searches For Its End directed by Vivek Vishwanathan. The award carried a cash prize of Rs 20,000 sponsored by Anupam Kher’s Actor Prepares and a two day shooting kit from Accord Equips.
The Riyad Wadia Award for Best Emerging Filmmaker went to Vaibhav Hatkar for his Marathi short film Ek Maaya Ashi Hi (A Love Such As This). The cash award of Rs 15,000 was sponsored by Wadia Movietone.
The Best Documentary award went to Do I Sound Gay? from the US directed by David Thorpe. The winner receives a cash prize of Rs 20,000 sponsored by Pond5.
The other awards went to Irish film Novena directed by Anna Rodgers (Best Documentary Short Film award that carries prize of stock footage worth $350 sponsored by Pond 5) and 09:55 – 11:05 Ingrid Ekman Bergsgatan 4b (Best International Narrative Short) from Sweden directed by Cristine Berglund and Sophie Vukovic.
Fashion designer and BJP leader Shaina NC was the chief guest of the festival and she also gave away the KASHISH Rainbow Warrior 2015 Award posthumously to lesbian rights activist late Betu Singh. The award was received by Betu Singh’s partner and co-worker Maya Shanker.