The Journey (Sancharram)
Tuesday June 21  |  6:30 pm  |  Parkway Theater (Oakland)
Friday June 24  |  8:45 pm  |  Castro Theater (SF)

THE JOURNEY is a lyrical and poetic love story about two teens living in
rural South India.

Kiran and Delilah meet as children when Kiran’s family moves back to her mother’s ancestral home. Kiran is told by her mother, “Remember, you are descended from warriors.” Kiran takes this message to heart and rises to the challenge, defending those who are bullied and lending support or a friendly gesture to the troubled or less reputable girls in her school. Her best friend is Delilah, and the two are inseparable.

One day, as the young friends are walking home, they meet a fortuneteller who reads their palms. She promises that they will both find true love. Shortly after, the fortuneteller’s message comes true for Kiran: romantic feelings blossom for her childhood best friend. Can they keep their relationship and not lose their culture or their families?

Chicago filmmaker Ligy J. Pullappally says she created the film in part to help lower the number of lesbian suicides in this particular region of India. By bringing insight and compassion to a story of young love, this film shows love as it is: sweet, tender, and running as deep as the ocean, regardless of gender.

Co-presented by 3rd I South Asian Films and Trikone
Ticket Info: email info@frameline.org or visit www.frameline.org/festival.

My Brother Nikhil
Sunday June 19  |  3:15 pm  |  Castro Theater (SF)
Tuesday June 21  |  9:15 pm  |  Parkway Theater (Oakland)

The must-see movie of 2005 from India’s booming film industry is no song-and-dance-filled, wet-sari extravaganza. It does have hunky swimmers in wet Speedos, but MY BROTHER NIKHIL is really making waves as the first Hindi movie to take on the twin taboos of homosexuality and HIV.

Nikhil (Sanjay Suri) has it all — he’s a champion swimmer with a storybook happy family — until a routine blood test comes back positive for HIV. It’s the late 80s, and AIDS panic is rampant. The cops quarantine him, family and friends shun him, and panicked swimmers flee the pool when he dives in. But he has unwavering support from his sister, Anamika (Bollywood star Juhi Chawla), and his boyfriend, Nigel (Purab Kohli).

Shorn of caricature, Nigel and Nikhil’s relationship is a landmark in Indian film. Unambiguously gay, with even a cute pick-up scene, it conveys everything without ever using the word “gay.”

Thanks to an impassioned and sensitive script, Onir’s debut film is a poignant story about family, the pressure to conform, love, loss, and forgiveness. Ultimately, the film is less about HIV and more about how his struggle for dignity helps Nikhil become whole.

In a country where mobs once ransacked theaters showing the lesbian-themed film FIRE, MY BROTHER NIKHIL has achieved nothing short of a quiet revolution.

Co-presented by 3rd I South Asian Films and Trikone
Ticket Info: email info@frameline.org or visit www.frameline.org/festival.

June 1, 8pm
Artists' Television Access, 992 Valencia Street, San Francisco
Admission: $5

Script & Direction: Shohini Ghosh (Bengali/English Subtitles, 74 min, 2002)
Five sexworkers -- four women and one man -- along with the filmmaker/narrator embark on a journey of storytelling. Tales of the Night Fairies explores the power of collective organizing and resistance while reflecting upon contemporary debates around sex work. The simultaneously expansive and labyrinthine city of Calcutta forms the backdrop for the personal and musical journeys of storytelling.

The film attempts to represent the struggles and aspirations of thousands of sex workers who constitute the DMSC (Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee or the Durbar Women's Collaborative Committee) an initiative that emerged from the Shonagachi HIV/AIDS Intervention Project. A collective of men, women and trans-gendered sex workers, DMSC demands decriminalization of adult sex work and the right to form a trade union.