IX Side by Side LGBT Film Festival, Saint Petersburg, 2016 IX Side by Side LGBT Film Festival, 2016 | Page 10

21 november, fr
20:00 — 22:55
MARGARITA
WITH A STRAW
Shonali Bose, India, 2014, 97 min.
2016 — National Film Awards, India, Special
Jury Award
2015 — Asian Film Awards, Best Composer
2014 — Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival,
Best Actress
Laila is a talented composer-songwriter who views
her cerebral palsy as a minor hurdle to overcome as she strives
to fulfil all the typical desires of an ambitious and spirited
young woman. When a fellow musician at Delhi University
breaks her heart, Laila makes the difficult decision
to leave her affectionate family and enter a writing
program at NYU.
During an Occupy Wall Street demonstration, Laila escapes
from tear gas with Khanum, a beautiful Bangladeshi-
American woman (who is visually impaired and a Muslim),
and their flirtation quickly blossoms into a full-on affair.
After-film discussion will be about LGBT people with
disabilities in Russia, about inclusiveness and acceptance
in society and within the LGBT community itself.
Activists of Queer Peace — an organisation for LGBT
with disabilities - will take part in the discussion.
26 november, sa
17:45 — 20:00
But what will happen when Laila brings her new love home
to India, where homosexuality is still illegal by legislation,
and where such a romance among the differently abled
is especially taboo?
Her exhilarating adventures cause a rift both within herself
and with those she is closest to. Desiring and pleasing
another, fully participating in life with all its joys,
wackiness, and losses—this heroine shows how it can
be done and despite all the obstacles it is possible to find
the strength to be truly oneself.
Participants:
Аyman Eckford, Queer Peace activist for neurodiversity
Jolant Whale, Queer Peace activist, blogger
Kirill Fedorov, Queer Peace leader, civil activist
I, OLGA HEPNAROVA
Tomáš Weinreb, Petr Kazda,
Czech / Poland / Slovakia / France, 2016, 105 min
2016 — Sofia International Film Festival, Best Director
2016 — Berlin International Film Festival, Nomination Best First Feature Award
Olga Hepnarova was a young, lonely
lesbian outsider from a cold-hearted family
who couldn’t play the part society desired of her.
Her paranoid self-examination and inability
to connect with other people eventually drove
her over the edge of humanity when she was
only twenty-two years old.
The film, meticulously composed and shot
in elegiac black and white, shows the human
being behind the mass murderer without
glorifying or downplaying the terrible crime
she committed. Guided by her letters Olga’s
psyche is delved into and we lay witness
to the worsening of her loneliness and alienation
which culminate in a disastrous act. Although
the story is set in the seventies, young people
worldwide today still face problems of not
belonging, being different, and being bullied
because of race, gender or sexual orientation.