‘Jimpa,’ ‘Maspalomas’ To Headline Kashish Pride Film Festival in Mumbai

EXCLUSIVE: The Olivia Colman-John Lithgow starring Jimpa and Goya Award-winning Maspalomas are set to headline Kashish Pride Film Festival, South Asia’s largest LGBTQ+ film festival that’s about to get underway in Mumbai, India.

In Jimpa, the drama directed by Sophie Hyde, Lithgow plays the titular character, a gay senior living in Amsterdam who is visited by his daughter Hannah (Olivia Colman) and nonbinary granddaughter Frances (Aud Mason-Hyde). “Jimpa celebrates LGBTQ+ culture across three generations,” notes a synopsis: “Grandfather Jim faces the challenges of aging as a gay man in a generation that never expected to grow old; teenager Frances grapples with the disappointment of their heroes falling short of their ideals; and mother Hannah navigates the differing perspectives of her father and of her child. Surrounding these three is a vibrant family–the family they were born into and the family they continue to create.”

Jimpa opens Kashish on Wednesday; the festival closes on Sunday (June 7) with Maspalomas, directed by Aitor Arregi and Jose Mari Goenaga. The drama about a gay senior who goes back into the closet after moving into a nursing home earned 9 Goya Award nominations – Spain’s equivalent of the Oscars – including Best Director. José Ramón Soroiz won Best Actor for his role as protagonist Vicente. Maspalomas won Best Narrative Feature at the recent Sonoma International Film Festival in Northern California.

Kashish, featuring films, talks, art and performances at three venues in Mumbai, will screen 153 films from 43 countries. The festival presents awards in 13 categories, along with cash prizes for winners.

“Over the past 17 years of KASHISH, every year the bar is raised higher, and the stakes are getting bigger,” said Sridhar Rangayan, founder and director of the festival. “With around 600 submissions this year, it was an extremely difficult task to curate our final programming line-up, and to pick the nominees in the competition categories was the toughest job – we had to pick the best from the best!”

Kashish announced a prestigious array of jurors to judge the competition categories, including Oscar nominated filmmaker Shaunak Sen (All That Breathes), who will serve on the documentary jury.

“I am honored and excited to be on the KASHISH film festival jury,” Sen said in a statement. “I have loved many of the films that have played at the festival in recent years, and deeply admire the sheer international breadth of films that are programmed this year.”

Noted Bollywood director Nikkhil Advani (Kal Ho Na Ho, Salaam-e-Ishq, Freedom at Midnight) is part of the KASHISH QDrishti Film Grant Jury. Advani commented, “Thrilled to be included as part of the jury of the 17th KASHISH Pride Film Festival. Walking in the footsteps of past jurors like Kiran Rao, Hansal Mehta, Gauri Shinde, Neeraj Ghaywan to name a few, filmmakers I admire so much and who have set such high standards in their ability to tell incredible stories, is a true privilege. I really look forward to hearing, reading and working with a community of storytellers, all committed to break existing barriers and tell important stories.”

Sundance winning filmmaker Shonali Bose (Amu, Margarita with a Straw, The Sky Is Pink) and National Award-winning actress Parvathy Thiruvothu (Take Off, Ullozhukku, Qarib Qarib Single) are part of the Narrative Jury. Bose said, “It’s truly an honor to be part of the KASHISH jury. I have been associated with and loved KASHISH since its inception in 2010, and watched with pride as it has played an important role in creating visibility, community, and cinematic space for LGBTQIA+ stories in India and beyond. I’m excited to discover films that are bold, emotionally truthful, formally inventive, and deeply human — stories that not only reflect queer lives, but expand the way we see and understand one another.”

Juror Parvathy Thiruvothu said, “I have been an ally and supporter of LGBTQ+ communities for as long as I have understood what it means to truly listen. My belief is simple: queer lives are not subtexts, sidebars or symbols. They are full, tender, complicated, joyful lives that deserve to be seen on screen with the same dignity, scrutiny and love we offer any story.”

Other acclaimed personalities on the jury are actresses Rajshri Deshpande & Maanvi Gagroo, filmmakers Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari and Shazia Iqbal, screenwriter Ishita Moitra, producer Monisha Tyagarjan, academician Rahul Puri, and DEI specialist Akshay Tyagi.

The LGBTQ+ community is represented across several festival juries by Neeraj Churi, Jaydeep Sarkar, Ashish Sawhny, and Roy Wadia (a regional communications chief at WHO/Europe, former executive producer at CNN International, and a member of the legendary Wadia Movietone family).