Yours Emotionally
Encyclopedia
Yours Emotionally is a United Kingdom
-India
n co-produced film with a gay theme. The film was selected for participation in LGBT
film festival
s in San Francisco (Frameline, formerly the San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival), New York (NewFest), Amsterdam and others.
, who earlier made the award winning film The Pink Mirror
says that what is wonderful about this film is the fearless participation, for the first time, of more than 100 gay and transexual members of gay groups like The Humsafar Trust in Mumbai
and Lakshya in Gujarat.
Reviewing the film for Frameline30, Corey Eubanks wrote:
The film is produced by Niranjan Kamatkar of Wise Thoughts, London and co-produced by Solaris Pictures, Mumbai, India.
Fueled by flirting, erotic performances and open sex, Yours Emotionally is a revealing film about the growing Indian gay community. The camera lingers over the hot bodies of Indian men and never shirks from giving gay men a sexuality seldom seen from this part of the world. Sridhar Rangayan uses both traditional and experimental film techniques to build a story of love, compassion and truth in a society that is only now beginning to accept gay people for who they are.
Source - TLA Videos
http://www.tlavideo.com/details/product_details.cfm?id=240082&v=2&sn=2478&enable=false
2006
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
-India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
n co-produced film with a gay theme. The film was selected for participation in LGBT
LGBT
LGBT is an initialism that collectively refers to "lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender" people. In use since the 1990s, the term "LGBT" is an adaptation of the initialism "LGB", which itself started replacing the phrase "gay community" beginning in the mid-to-late 1980s, which many within the...
film festival
Film festival
A film festival is an organised, extended presentation of films in one or more movie theaters or screening venues, usually in a single locality. More and more often film festivals show part of their films to the public by adding outdoor movie screenings...
s in San Francisco (Frameline, formerly the San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival), New York (NewFest), Amsterdam and others.
Summary
The film raises issues of cultural identities and challenges stereotypes. It is an important milestone in making visible the invisible Indian gay community. The director Sridhar RangayanSridhar Rangayan
Sridhar Rangayan ) is an Indian filmmaker who has made films with special focus on queer subjects. His queer films, The Pink Mirror and Yours Emotionally, have been considered groundbreaking because of their realistic and sympathetic portrayal of the largely closeted Indian gay community...
, who earlier made the award winning film The Pink Mirror
The Pink Mirror
The Pink Mirror, the Indian release title Gulabi Aaina is an award-winning Indian film drama produced and directed by Sridhar Rangayan. Said to be the first Indian film to comprehensively focus on Indian transsexuals with the entire story revolving around two transsexuals and a gay teenager's...
says that what is wonderful about this film is the fearless participation, for the first time, of more than 100 gay and transexual members of gay groups like The Humsafar Trust in Mumbai
Mumbai
Mumbai , formerly known as Bombay in English, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India, and the fourth most populous city in the world, with a total metropolitan area population of approximately 20.5 million...
and Lakshya in Gujarat.
Reviewing the film for Frameline30, Corey Eubanks wrote:
- "From the director of The Pink Mirror (Frameline27) comes this intoxicating queer journey through India. Ravi is a young Indian man living in England who impulsively heads to an all-night gay party in an Indian village, dragging his British friend Paul along.
- Fueled by erotic performances, flirting and sex, Ravi connects at the party with Mani, a closeted working-class guy. Rooming at the very gay-friendly hotel belonging to Murthy and Anna, an older gay couple who have been together for more than thirty years, Ravi decides to stay for a few days to pursue what may be the love of his life, but the consequences of their hedonistic night catch up with them. With bursts of surrealSurrealismSurrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
images and scenes, Ravi tries to reconnect with Mani, but the situation becomes rocky when his slutty friend Paul flaunts his own careless hook-up with Mani.
- Thankfully, Ravi has the wisdom of Murthy and Anna to guide him. They share their stories of defying tradition, loving against all odds and being true to oneself. Invigorated by his time with the couple, Ravi meets Mani once again to see if their fates may indeed be intertwined.
- In addition to the colorful and bizarre situations, the camera lingers lovingly over the queer Indian male body and exalts its sexuality. With a consistently surreal look, Yours Emotionally feels like a beautiful fever dream inspired by both avant-garde gay cinema and the tropes of BollywoodBollywoodBollywood is the informal term popularly used for the Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai , Maharashtra, India. The term is often incorrectly used to refer to the whole of Indian cinema; it is only a part of the total Indian film industry, which includes other production centers producing...
."
The film is produced by Niranjan Kamatkar of Wise Thoughts, London and co-produced by Solaris Pictures, Mumbai, India.
Synopsis
Two best friends, Ravi and Paul, go on vacation to India where they attend an all night, eye-opening gay sex party. Surprised by the openness of their hosts and the aggressiveness of the guests, the boys fall into the steadily growing Indian gay culture. Ravi is especially bitten hard as he falls for the good looking but deeply closeted Mani. Will caste, economics and customs allow these two love birds a happy ending or will the forces of tradition and homophobia keep them apart?Fueled by flirting, erotic performances and open sex, Yours Emotionally is a revealing film about the growing Indian gay community. The camera lingers over the hot bodies of Indian men and never shirks from giving gay men a sexuality seldom seen from this part of the world. Sridhar Rangayan uses both traditional and experimental film techniques to build a story of love, compassion and truth in a society that is only now beginning to accept gay people for who they are.
Source - TLA Videos
http://www.tlavideo.com/details/product_details.cfm?id=240082&v=2&sn=2478&enable=false
Cast
- Premjit
- Pratik Gandhi,
- Jack Lamport,
- Ikhlaq Khan,
- Ajay Rohilla,
- Iravati Karnik,
- Abhay Kulkarni
- Mansoor, Ashwin
Screenings
2007- 4th Independent South Asian Film Festival, Seattle, USA
- Siddharth Gautam Film Festival, Kolkata, India
- Renberg Theatre, Los Angeles by LA Gay & Lesbian Center, USA
2006
- Santa Fe Film FestivalSanta Fe Film FestivalThe Santa Fe Film Festival is a Non-Profit Organization which presents important world cinema in a non-commercial context that represents aesthetic, critical and entertainment standards highlighting New Mexican film, new American and foreign film including revivals, retrospectives, independent...
. Santa Fe Film Center, Santa Fe, USA - Rialto Filmtheater, Amsterdam, Netherlands
- Sixth Annual IAAC Film Festival, Maya Deren Theatre, New York, USA
- 'A Million Different Loves!?', Gdansk & Lodz, Poland
- Prague Bollywood Festival, Poland
- Fire Island Fim and Video festival, Cheery Grove, New York, USA
- Frameline 30 - San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival, USA
- NewFest 2006 - The 18th New York LGBT Film Festival, USA
Reviews
- Variety
- Bay Area Reporter
- Frameline
- East Bay Express
- India Currents
- NewFest
- Frameline News
- India New England
- New York Times
- Fulvuedrive