The big opening night for the 15th KASHISH Pride Film Festival 2024 took place at the iconic Liberty Cinema on May 15, 2024, in the city of Mumbai. The evening was lined up with announcements for special awards, some spectacular performances by standup comedian & filmmaker Varun Grover, and a Lavni & Kathak jugalbandi by Aditi Bhargav and Harshada Jambekar.
Present at the opening ceremony were celebrities and socialites like Kiran Rao, Shweta Prasad Basu, Sonali Kulkarni, Barun Sobti, Lillete Dubey, Dolly Thakore, Anu Menon and more.
The hosts for the night were Anu Menon aka Lola Kutty & SeduQtress SoniQa who entertained the audiences with their fun banter and lively presence on stage. Sridhar Rangayan, festival director of KASHISH, mentioned how the 15th edition of the film festival is special as the recent change in the name of the festival indicated the festival’s new mission of being inclusive of the non-queer community too.
Next Saagar Gupta, Director of programming asked, “You know the mystery behind the missing ‘I’ in the word of KASHISH, the letters of which are placed outside in the Liberty compound?” He happily answered by saying that it is the audience, the guests, and everyone who has made it here today. It is them who complete KASHISH, as they stand to pose with the letters, they form the ‘I’.
