Thursday, January 21, 2010

The Red Umbrella - a story based documentation of the Indian gay rights movement


At the shooting: Tirthankar shooting a scene with Dipmoy, Sramana and Bina Guhathakurta



Imon and Didi: Capturing childhood frames


Imon: Unfurling the umbrella
Imon and Didi: a new biginning
50 min, Bengali (with English subtitles)
Kolkata, 2010

Screening: 25th of Jan, 2010 at Rotary sadan (Opp. Exide more Haldiram)
Entry open to all
All are cordially invited.

Synopsis:


Imon’s sister never liked her brother using a red umbrella. “Red umbrella is for girls”, she felt. The film traces Imon’s journey from a small village to the perplexing crowd of the city where many people are organizing some sort of a forbidden march to unfurl their hearts’ colors.
Through its course, the film generates questions around gender, sexuality and the history of LGBT rights movement in India. It embraces the popular debate around Indian Penal Code 377 that forbids same sex love, and the recent High Court rulings on the same.
In a span of 50 minutes the playright addresses issues like "coming out", activism, law and humanity.

Credits:

1. Story, Script & Direction: Tirthankar Guha Thakurta
2. Cinematography: Kallol Nath, Rupesh Chaudhuri
3. Music: Aneesh Basu
4. Cast: Dipmoy Nath, Sramana Mukhopadhyay, Bina Guha Thakurta, Chinmoy Guha Thakurta, Sreyoshi Guha Thakurta & Anuprabho Ghosh
5. Editing: Ayan Chakraborty
6. Make up & Styling: Manish Sharma
7. Sound recording & Dubbing: Nihar Ranjan Chakraborty
8. Studio: Post Production

About the Director:

A doctor and teacher at a Kolkata based medical college, Tirthankar took up film-making as a second year medical student. His first film Piku Bhalo Achhe (Piku Is Fine), based on the coming out of a young gay boy, won accolades at various national and international film festivals. His subsequent films Strangers in the Rain, Being Positive and Magic have all dealt with various facets of gender, sexuality and human rights. He has always been vocal about the rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons through his profession and films.

10 comments:

Srini Iyer said...

Hi,
Hope you still remember me from school and scouts. I highly appreciate your efforts to promote LGBT rights and of course pursuing your passion in film-making. I would like to watch your movies. Please let me know if they are available on the internet.

Tirthankar Guha Thakurta said...

Dear Srinivas,
sure u can get the DVDs. on the internet two of our films, magic and being positive are available on Youtube. the links are given in my orkut profile. :)
Pl get in touch through my email id: tirthankar82@yahoo.co.in

Neverontime said...

sir, i didn't know that you directed films... nice to hear about it... hope to get a copy of some of the films... or have you uploaded any??

PS: gay activist??... i didn't expect!! :P

Neverontime said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Neverontime said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Neverontime said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Tequila Thoughts said...

Interesting! That's the one word that came to my mind. Where can we get hold of your movie? being Screened somewhere?

Tirthankar Guha Thakurta said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Tirthankar Guha Thakurta said...

Dear All,

Thanks for the encouraging words..
We will soon have a screening around February 2011, as the second edition of our event "Colors of Love", that we celebrate in sync with the Valentines Day spirit, to spread words on rights to love and be loved.. on tolerance and inclusion... on prides and prejudices....
We will surely inform you in advance about the plans...
Regards.

alfachemistry said...

Products listed on our website are either in stock or can be resynthesized within a reasonable time frame. Ali\'s Umbrella extract