NEW DELHI: Indian Film Festival of Melbourne will feature the restored version of India’s first LGBTQ film Badnaam Basti for its special Pride Celebratory Night next month.The film released in 1971 and was directed by Prem Kapoor.The Nitin Sethi, Amar Kakkad, and Nandita Thakur starrer follows a driver bandit named Sarnam who rescues Bansuri from assault.He later hires temple worker Shivraj, creating an interconnected relationship between the three.The film was believed to be lost after its brief appearance in festival circuits but a 35mm print was accidently discovered in the archives at the Arsenal Institute for Film and Video Art in Berlin by two US curators — Simran Bhalla and Michael Metzger — in 2019.They were searching for work by a different director with the same surname and chanced upon the prints of Badnaam Basti, according to an article in The Guardian in December 2024.The legacy of the film, which was quite forward for its times for its homo-erotic undertones, will be honoured by this rare showcase, followed by the Australian premiere of “We Are Faheem and Karun”, a tender queer love story by acclaimed filmmaker Onir, according to a release here.
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