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Click on this link to download the brochure for Reel Desires, Chennai International Queer Film Festival 2025.

THIRTEENTH  EDITION OF REEL DESIRES: CHENNAI INTERNATIONAL QUEER FILM FESTIVAL, SHOWCASES DIVERSE GENDER AND SEXUALITIES  AUGUST 8-10, 2025

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Image stills and Trailer videos are available at https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1wMh57un0lDtUv4ns2e1V-RX0HIKUrFaF?usp=sharing

For more information, contact 98415-57983, email [email protected] or visit www.ciqff.org.

The thirteenth annual edition of Reel Desires: Chennai International Queer Film Festival will be held at the Goethe-Institut, Chennai,  from August 8 to 10, 2025. Reel Desires features films, shorts and documentaries showcasing sexuality and gender diversity issues.  This year’s line-up consists of 15 films from 9 countries, selected via a community-led review process. The principal organisers of CIQFF 2025 are Orinam and Goethe-Institut, working in collaboration with Nirangal Charitable Trust  and SAATHII.

On Friday, August 8, the inauguration will be followed by Amma’s Pride, a heart-warming short documentary featuring Valli, a woman from rural Tamil Nadu, and the unconditional love that supports her trans daughter Srija through trying times.  Other shorts to be screened  on Day 1  include  NGGAK!! (2024) and  The Story of Yuvraj and Shahajahan (2024).  Friday’s feature-length film Neabau (2020) from Germany follows  the life of Marcus, a trans man living in the Uckermark,  torn between the love for his grandmother in need of care and the longing for a different life with queer chosen family in Berlin. Films on Saturday, August 9th, will  focus on shorts that address universal themes of family, education, livelihood, sex, and romance with humour, poignancy and passion.  Highlights include Thet (2025) that explores how  a Welsh father and son  bond over the latter’s  detached post-surgery nipple and missing prosthetic penis, and Tawaif (2023), that examines the relationship between two queer men conducted despite constraints imposed by heteronormative society. Tudo que importa (2024) features a group of adults and elders in Brazil who stand up for  their trans and gender non-conforming children and grandchildren in remarkable ways. An award-winning Odia short, B and S (2025), tells a tale of the tender friendship between two trans women. 

Saturday’s film screenings will be followed by a panel discussion Getting Settled: Queer Perspectives. Panelists, who include members of Chennai’s LGBTQIA+ communities and allies,  will address the heteronormative script that posits a sequence of education-employment-marriage-children progressing towards the state of “getting settled”. The panelists will discuss how and why queer lives depart from this script. 

Following the panel discussion will be The Fab Glitter party —featuring a DJ, glitter makeup, fun, and celebration.  It will take place from 7:30 PM onwards on the rooftop of Goethe-Institut, with entry limited to 100 persons. 

The program on Sunday, August 10th, will commence at 3 p.m. with the internationally-acclaimed performance ITEM: More than a Drag Show, written, designed and performed by Ahon Gooptu from Kolkata. ITEM is a  genrefluid show incorporating dance, drama, and drag, that takes viewers on a journey across cultures, homes, and nightclubs to address notions of home and self.

Following ITEM, we will screen the Tamil Nadu premiere of I am Revathi (2025)  exploring the life  of the eponymous trans rights activist, writer, speaker and theatre actor, through the lens of Kerala-based photo-journalist and filmmaker P. Abhijith. IUS del tiempo (2025) will then transport audiences to the bucolic Asturia region of Spain, where Luca, a young visiting photographer encounters Xuan, an experienced cheesemaker marked by a past full of rumors and prejudices. Through Luca’s camera and Xuan’s craft, they both discover unexpected connections in an intimate encounter between two seemingly opposing worlds. 

The closing feature film of the festival is Manok (2025), a sharp and heartwarming comedy from South Korea that was an official selection at this year’s BFI Flare in London. Feisty lesbian elder Manok flees Seoul’s queer youth culture—only to face an even messier showdown in her rural hometown. With a stubborn and homophobic ex-husband-turned-mayor in her way and unexpected allies by her side, she’s ready to rewrite the rules of home, love, and belonging.