SamaBhav International Travelling Film Festival

SamaBhav, which means “equanimity”, is a first-of-its-kind, free-to-attend festival that showcases contemporary short, documentary and feature films about discrimination against women and other gender minorities. Toxic masculinity, homophobia, transphobia and the intersectionality of gender are among the topics covered by the selected films. SamaBhav International Travelling Film Festival is organised by Men Against Violence & Abuse.

The fifth edition of the SamaBhav International Travelling Film Festival on Gender Diversity and Inclusion kicked off in Mumbai on 20 February 2023, and is expected to go on till August. This year, it has till now travelled to Bengaluru, Pune and Guwahati and in the coming weeks, would travel to Chennai, Kohima (Nagaland),  Srinagar, Gorakhpur, Ahmedabad, Bilaspur, Kochi and four rural districts of Maharashtra—Satara, Baramati, Jalgaon and Sindhudurg. By August 2023, it is also slated to travel to two international cities—Jakarta (Indonesia) and Thimphu (Bhutan).

24 national and international short films, documentaries and feature films on various gender-based issues—from various forms of gender-based discriminations to violence against women, transphobia, questioning gender binaries and toxic masculinity—are being screened. Notable award-winning films that are being screened include Hasina, Naanu Ladies, Trans Kashmir, The Bystander Moment (US), Like a Moon Flower (Bhutanese), Gandi Baat, We Need to Talk (by Tinder India), Gair, From the Shadows, Ujjhyo, Kohrra,  Counterfeit Kunkoo, Footprints, Binary Error and Tal (Bottomland). Besides having students from colleges and universities and youth from civil society bodies, the travelling festival has also been reaching out to employees of corporate institutions such as Capgemini in three locations, including Airoli, Pune and Chennai.

The screenings at the festival are often followed by stirring conversations with gender rights activists, filmmakers, academics and media personalities. The attendees include thousands of youths in universities and colleges in cities and rural districts across India. Past editions have at times included live performances of plays and poetry reading in addition to the screenings. The fourth edition of the festival travelled to Tezpur, Dibrugarh, Mumbai, Kolkata, Dehradun, Ranchi, Lucknow and Bengaluru across India between February and August 2022.

Some of the prominent films to have been screened at previous editions of the festival include Untying The Knot (Bangladesh), Natkhat (Documentary coproduced by Vidya Balan), Boys Who Like Girls (Finland-Norway) and The Mask You Live In (US). Notable speakers present at previous editions included actresses Sonali Kulkarni, Rajshri Deshpande and Vidya Balan, journalist Kalpana Sharma, transgender rights activists Gauri Sawant and Disha Pinki Shaikh and filmmakers Arunaraje Patil and Jeo Baby.

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