Bandra Film Festival (BFF), a digital film festival presented by Filmkaravan in collaboration with YouTube will be showcasing two poignant films based on life and vicissitudes of sex workers under the theme Broken but Beautiful.
The first film is Tikli & Laxmi Bomb starring Chitrangada Satarupa, Vibhawari Deshpande, Saharsh Kumar Shukla and directed by Aditya Kripalani. The 2 hours and 13-minute-long film is about two sex workers who decide to kick men out of the system and form a cooperative that runs the business for women and by women.
Speaking about the lineup of films, Pooja Kohli Taneja, Artistic Director of Bandra Film Festival states, “Broken but Beautiful captures feminism. It is a theme that showcases the lives of perhaps the most oppressed women in our society yet how empowered they are to really fight the system. We are a really lucky lot, to sit back, sip our coffee and talk about feminism. The women who face oppression on a regular basis, standing up for their rights is a very different ball game. Through Broken but Beautiful we would like to salute these women for their exemplary resilience and strength to not only endure but to strive for change”.
The second film Bahadur: The Accidental Brave is a Nepali film directed by Aditya Seth. The film talks about labour migration to India. Many Nepalese migrant workers are susceptible to high-risk sexual behaviour and end up contracting HIV. Nepal from where maximum labour migration to Mumbai happens is reeling under the impact of an HIV micro-epidemic. This documentary is an in-depth look at the brave Nepalese migrants' life in a social, economic and political context.
Both these films question patriarchy and social settings that women have to brave on an everyday basis for their survival.