LGBT Movies of India

1. Fire India/Canada (1996)

Director: Deepa Mehta

Cast: Shabana azmi & Nandita Das

Plot: Ashok runs a family business that sells takeout food that also has a video rental store at the side. Ashok's extended family includes his wife Radha, his brother Jatin, their ailing mother Biji and their manservant Mundu, all living under the same roof. Jatin, at the insistence of Ashok and their mother, Biji, agrees to marry the beautiful Sita in an arranged marriage, although he is actually in love with Julie, a Chinese-Indian. At first glance, you see a happy middle-class family going through the normal paces of everyday life. However, as the layers are slowly peeled back, we find a simmering cauldron of discontent within the family, with almost every family member living a lie. Both marriages in the family turn out to be emotionally empty, without love or passion. While Ashok is an ascetic who has taken a vow of celibacy, Jatin is a handsome ladies' man who is still openly seeing Julie even after his marriage to Sita. Ashok has pledged his total devotion to a religious holy man, a swami, in order to purge his life of worldly desires and temptations. Radha, bound by her sense of duty to her husband, agrees to go along with his wishes. As you can imagine, with both husbands ignoring their spouses' emotional and sexual needs (albeit with reasons that are totally opposite from each other), it is only a matter of time before Radha and Sita look to one another for comfort and to satisfy their own passions. In this environment, it is only natural that Sita and Radha become fast friends, and, in time, much more than that. But their love is not without its share of painful obstacles.

2. Bombay Boys, India (1998)

Director: Kaizad Gustad

Cast: Naveen Andrews

Plot: Krishna alias Kris Sahani lives in New York, U.S., but decides to travel to his homeland in order to act in a movie. While Ricardo Fernandes leaves Sydney, Australia to travel to Bombay in search of his missing brother, Roger. And finally, Zeres Mistry, from London, England, also travels to Bombay to find his true love. The paths of all three Non-resident Indians cross in the taxi ride to Colaba, and they decide to stick together in their search for an apartment. They do succeed in finding one, owned by a seemingly gay landlord, Pesi Shroff, who openly and lovingly eyes a visibly uncomfortable Zeres. Things do not go well for Kris as well as he is asked by Filmmaker, Don Mastana, to act in a movie that is slated to be the worst movie in Bollywood history. Ricardo finds himself at the mercy of the local police, who make it clear to him that they have better things to do than look for his missing brother. It is only a matter of time before the hapless trio to realize that their respective hopes, dreams and aspirations are soon to turn to hopelessness and nightmares - from which there is no escape.

3. Sum Total, India/US (1999)

Director: Sonali Gulati

Plot: What does an Indian lesbian do when her parents want to marry her to an unknown man?

4. Barefeet India/US (2000)

Director: Sonali Gulati

Plot: An Indian lesbian attempts to come out to her family but she is unable to do so.

5. Adhura (incomplete), English/Hindi

Couldn’t find any information related to movie…………

6. Mango Soufflé , India (2002)

Director: Mahesh Dattani

Cast: Rinke kanna

7. Gulabi Aaina (The Pink Mirror), India (2003)

Director: Shridhar Rangayan

Cast: Edwin Fernandis, Ramesh Menon

Plot: The Pink Mirror pits two Indian drag queens against a westernized gay teenager in a battle to woo a handsome hunk. It's a clash of the east and west. Who will win? The drag queens, who are expert in the art of seduction with their wit, innuendo and cunning or the young teenager who is saucy, slutty and sly? Underneath the campy humorous exterior, the film is an exploration of the Indian gay landscape and understanding of the deep, humanly tender bondings that exist between drag queens in India who form unique, non-patriarchal families. Using the Bollywood soap idiom of song, dance and drama and for the first time in the Indian drag queens' very own language, Hindi, the film also explores other veiled issues related to the Indian gay community: the lurking threat of HIV/AIDS.

8. Girlfriend, India (2004)

Director: Karan Razdan

Cast: Isha Koppikar, Amrita Arora

Plot: 'Girlfriend' is a story about two intimate friends Tanya and Sapna who have always been together since they were in college. Now they live together and each one of them is fond of the other, to that extent that if one does something, the other follows. Sapna meets Rahul when Tanya is out of town for some work. Sapna finds herself in a relationship with Rahul and by the time Tanya is back, Sapna has already fallen for Rahul and starts loving him. When Tanya learns of this relationship, she is jealous and reacts very adversely and in her jealousy and possessiveness comes out when she meets Rahul. Now Tanya goes all out to break Sapna's relationship with Rahul and her hidden agenda and desires come to light in the later part of the film.

9. My Brother Nikhil, India (2005)

Director: Onir

Cast: Sanjay Suri & Purab Kohli

Plot: My Brother… Nikhil is a 2005 Indian film set in Goa. The movie portrays the life of the protagonist, Nikhil, from 1987 to 1994, when AIDS awareness in India was considerably low. Nikhil does not tell the story directly; the story is told to the viewer through the experiences and from the points of view of Nikhil's father, mother, boyfriend, lawyer, and his sister.

10. Navarasa, India (2005)

Director: Santosh Sivan

Cast: Bobby Darling

Plot: Swetha, 13, discovers that her uncle Gautham dresses as a woman once night has fallen. Intrigued, she asks him about him, and he confesses her that his dream would be to escape to Koovagam, a little city in the South of India, where transvestites gather to perpetuate the myth of Aravan. Once he disappears, Swetha goes after him, without warning her parents...

11. Quest (Thaang), India (2006)

Director: Amol Palekar

Cast: Mukta barve

12. Yours Emotionally, UK/India (2006)

Director: Shridhar Rangayan

Cast: Premjit, Jack lampert

Plot: Ravi & Paul, two friends from Leicester, end up attending a gay party in the small Indian town of Shimoga, upon an invitation of Ravi's Parsee email-pal Jeh from Mumbai. A genteel dreamer Ravi instantly falls in love with Mani - a dark & handsome local working man. Ravi and Paul also meet an older male couple, Murthy & Anna, now in their sixties. Murthy has lived in the UK to avoid marriage. When he returns to attend his mother's funeral, his lover Anna (a married man by then) convinces him to stay back. After his wife's death, Anna decides to join Murthy & they run a hotel. Both Ravi & Paul are surprised to meet the older same-sex couple. Although Ravi can't let go of his newfound love, Mani cannot overcome the vast gap that exists between them. Mani is under constant pressure to get married to a woman. When Ravi asks Mani to accompany him to UK, Mani shows very little willingness. Ravi seeks Murthy & Anna's help, but the couple hide behind words of wisdom and express inability to bring Ravi & Mani together. Tension brews between Ravi & Paul due to sexually charged Mani and the situation highlights some nasty cracks in their friendship... Mani throws in a surprise at the farewell meeting that Ravi's asked for... Interspersed with flashes of semi-surreal situations - presented through exciting dream sequences - Yours Emotionally ! unfolds a brightly painted canvas that explores contrasting values within Indian & Western gay sub-cultures.

13. Men Not Allowed, India (2006)

Director: Shrey shrivastava

Cast: Payal Rohatgi, Tina Mazumdar

14. I Can't Think Straight, India (2007)

Director: Shamim Sarif

Cast: Lisa Ray, Sheetal Sheth

Plot: In the upper echelons of traditional Middle Eastern society, Reema and Omar prepare for the marriage of their daughter Tala. But back at work in London, Tala encounters Leyla, a young British Indian woman who is dating Tala's best friend Ali. Tala sees something unique in the artless, clumsy, sensitive Leyla who secretly works to become a writer. And Tala's forthright challenges to Leyla's beliefs begins a journey of self-awareness for Leyla. As the women fall in love, Tala's own sense of duty and cultural restraint cause her to pull away from Leyla and fly back to Jordan where the preparations for an ostentatious wedding are well under way. As family members descend and the wedding day approaches, the pressure mounts until Tala finally cracks and extricates herself. Back in London, Leyla is heartbroken but learns to break free of her own self-doubt and her mother's expectations, ditching Ali and being honest with her parents about her sexuality. When Ali and Leyla's feisty sister Zara help throw Tala and Leyla together again, Tala finds that her own preconceptions of what love can be is the final hurdle she must jump to win Leyla back

15. The World Unseen, India (2007)

Director: Shamim Sharif

Cast: Lisa Ray, Sheetal Sheth

Plot: In the pressure cooker of apartheid South Africa, two women meet and their worlds are turned upside down. Miriam is a traditional Indian mother - hardworking and self-effacing. Amina breaks all the rules by driving a taxi and setting up a cafe with a local black man. In the face of outraged disapproval, their friendship flourishes. But the price, for Miriam, is the discovery of impossible truths about her marriage. In a system that divides white from black, black from Asian and the women from men, what chance is there for an unexpected love to survive?

16. 68 Pages, India (2007)

Director: Shridhar Rangayan

Cast: Joy Sengupta, Uday Sonaware

Plot: Coming from a country like India that is still in denial, where being HIV+ is still a curse, '68 Pages' rips open the underbelly of its society to reveal how it stigmatizes and shuns those who are HIV+ or even those who just want to be what they are. Through 68 Pages of a counselors diary, we see the stories of Paayal, a sex worker; Nishit, an ID user; Kiran, a gay man and Umrao, a transsexual bar dancer - their stories of pain and fear, humiliation and rejection - not only by the society, but even by their loved ones. While these stories expose the shallowness of the system, it also offers hope and healing by trying to bring about a better understanding of their fight to live with dignity. The film is a tribute to the human spirit of optimism and survival.

#Upcoming Movies

1. Pankh, India (2007)

Director: Sudipto Chattopadhyay

Cast: Maradona Rebello

Plot: The film is the story of the repercussions that have happened to a boy - a child artist who once played girl roles in films as Baby Kusum - once he becomes an adult and wants to be launched as a hero. Baby Kusum is a child star, a cute little girl. In reality, Baby Kusum is boy, masquerading as a girl. He was christened Jerry, and then named Master Jai for the movies. He and his mother Mary (Lilette) share a turbulent relationship. The boy’s family is poor and they want to make it big. The pressure of parents and ridicule make it a very sad situation for him. He becomes a drug-abuser who has never been to school and spends all his time at home. Eventually he creates an imaginary character he is in love with, & that imaginary character happens to be Bipasha who taunts him and fights with him, an alter ego who questions his every move. Jerry is made to face the camera again as a young man, which leads to the final catastrophe. The film highlights the common practice in the Indian film industry of casting children in role contrary to their natural genders, there screen.

2. Omar (I Am), India (2007)

Director: Onir

Cast: Rahul Bose, Abhimanyu Singh & Arjun Mathur.

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