British Council begins the seventh edition of Five Films For Freedom, the world’s largest LGBTIQ+ digital campaign. Audiences across the world can watch the five films online in solidarity with the communities in places where freedom and equal rights are limited and to explore love and acceptance.
Broadcasting five brand new LGBTIQ+ films to countries around the world, this year’s programme showcases queer storytelling from India, Spain, Sweden, USA and the UK. The festival’s short film selection includes an Indian film this time.
Five Film For Freedom list 2021:
- Bodies of Desire (India/Dir. Varsha Panikar & Saad Nawab/3 mins), directed by Varsha Panikar and multi-award-winner Saad Nawab. It uses Indian poet Panikar’s work as the basis for a visual, poetic film capturing four sets of lovers in a sensual celebration of gender-less love and desire.
- Land of the Free (Sweden/Dir. Dawid Ullgren/10 mins) – Ullgren’s tense Swedish drama follows the fictional David and friends as they celebrate his birthday with a nightly swim at the beach. The good mood swiftly changes after two straight couples walk by and laugh – was the laughter directed at them, or something else? Who owns the truth of exactly what happened?
- Pure (USA/Dir. Natalie Jasmine Harris/12 mins) is the fictional debut from the 2020 Directors Guild of America Student Film Award winner Natalie Jasmine Harris, centering on a young Black girl grappling with her queer identity and ideas of ‘purity’. The film is written, produced and directed by Harris – a filmmaker passionate about the intersection between film-making and social justice.
- Trans Happiness is Real (UK/Dir. Quinton Baker/8 mins)– a moving documentary from first-time filmmaker Quinton Baker – sees transgender activists take to the streets of Oxford, England to fight anti-trans sentiments using the power of graffiti and street art.
- Victoria (Spain/Dir. Daniel Toledo/7 mins) follows a bittersweet reunion between a trans woman and her ex, sparking tension and long buried resentment.Directed by award-winning filmmaker, Daniel Toledo, Victoria also features acclaimed trans actress, writer and director Abril Zamora (The Life Ahead, The Mess You Leave Behind).
In India, British Council has partnered with The Queer Muslim Project, South Asia’s largest virtual network of queer, Muslim and allied individuals, to celebrate and amplify LGBTIQ+ stories, voices and people. In Assam, British Council has partnered with Anaajoree, a non-profit organisation based out of Guwahati, and Poetry Couture, to organize screenings in Assam. It has collaborated with the Department of Cultural Studies in Tezpur to host a screening at the Tezpur University, followed by a discussion with faculty members on March 26 at 2 PM.
Over 15 million people from more than 200 countries have viewed the Five Films For Freedom programme since its launch in 2015. Especially for Indian audiences, the Five Films will also be streamed on Jio Cinema, one of India’s leading video on-demand streaming services. This year, the campaign further addresses the language barrier typically associated with international content, by providing subtitles in local languages such as Hindi.
