Evening Shadows to have a Pune premiere – read details

Evening Shadows, a film about a son coming out to his mother about him being gay, arrived in February 2018. The film since then has been a favourite in the festival circuit. And this Saturday it will be getting a Pune Premiere at the National Film Archives. The critically acclaimed film had its world premiere in Sydney, last year and within a span of a year Evening Shadows has been screened at 60 international film festivals and has won 16 international jury and audience awards. Now that’s quite an achievement, no?

The film will now have its Pune Premiere on Saturday, March 23, at the National Film Archives (NFAI) as a part of Advait which is Pune International Queer Film Festival. While the Indian LGBT film has impressed many across various festivals, director Sridhar Rangayan had expressed his concern at the recent FICCI Frames about independent LGBTQ films not finding their due place in mainstream distribution in India. He had said, “We are truly excited that our film is traveling to so many countries and cities – it is connecting at a very human level with audiences in different cultures. The mother-son story is a universal one and everyone has been appreciating the very relatable emotions in the film. We feel gratified and vindicated.”

He also added, “The world is with us, but unfortunately we still struggle in India to find our voice. We will continue to tap into alternative ways to reach out to audiences.” The film had limited theatrical release in January 2019 in India and in February in the USA. It is currently available on Netflix and is one of the trending films on the video streaming platform.

Evening Shadows will screen at qFlix Philadelphia where Rangayan’s earlier film Breaking Free won the prestigious Barbara Gittings Human Rights Award. In London, Evening Shadows will screen at the iconic Regent Street Cinema, which opened in 1848 and is regarded as ‘the birthplace of British cinema’, where the first motion picture was screened in the United Kingdom. The film will also be screened at Mawjoudin Queer Film Festival in Tunisia, Pink Apple Film Festival in Switzerland, Gay Film Week in Freiburg, Germany and Gay Film Nights festival in Romania. Evening Shadows stars Mona Ambegoankar, Ananth Mahadevan, Devansh Doshi and Arpit Chaudhary in the lead roles. The film was passed with a UA certification from CBFC and created quite a stir for being the first gay film to receive such certification.