GAY INDIA MATRIMONY

About the film

This film revolves around three characters who are out exploring their marriage prospects with one of them documenting their travails. Sayan and Gourab are assigned male at birth, Debalina—director of the film—is assigned female at birth. All three of them are looking for a same-gender partner and the very suggestion of wanting to marry a same-gender partner drives people around them into complete frenzy. From celebration to critique, from social to biological, from economic to political, the film takes the viewer on a panoramic ride of marriage. But the principal actor in this film is law of course. Notwithstanding the presence of Section 377 same-gender couples have, since time immemorial celebrated their partnership through different symbolic codes including marriage. The documentary shot over five years captures the watershed moment of reading down Section377 (6 September 2018) symbolizing a historic victory for all who fought for the right to have sex outside the legal regimentation of reproductive peno-vaginal intercourse. The film ends with the debate continuing on the rites and wrongs of marriage with anxieties being voiced about new regimes and new modalities of appropriation that are always gearing up to blunt the radical edge of resisting voices.

Filmmaker's Statement

Within the queer movement itself, there is a sharp divide on the issue of same-sex marriage. As state after state in the US, some countries in Europe start sanctioning same-sex marriage, there are many queer activists who have said that the state is coopting the subversive potential of queer people by giving them welfare benefits of the state if they marry. This way those who choose not to marry continue to remain outside of the ambit of welfare. Moreover, marriage is seen as an oppressive institution of patriarchy. On the other hand, those who are pro-same-sex marriage argue that if all the citizens of the state are equal, then anybody, irrespective of sexual orientation, class, race, ethnicity etc, can marry. I would like to engage with these debates also in my film. However, in the context of India where homosexuality itself is criminalized, what would it mean to desire same-sex marriage? How will the state view such a desire?

About the director

Debalina Majumder is an independent filmmaker and cinematographer. Her film Joy Run travelled to the 55th Berlin International Film Festival as part of the ‘Shoot Goals! Shoot Movies!’ short film competition of the Berlinale Talent Campus 2005. A Stranger in a Bioscope was also a part of the same festival. She has written, shot, and directed nationally and internationally acclaimed documentary films, short films and has been part of travelogues, music videos, telefilms and mixed genres as a cameraperson, director. She is also a still photographer and is passionate about issues of gender and sexuality, environment and occasionally writes for newspapers and magazines. Her films have been screened in community spaces, national and international film festivals and classrooms all over the world, and made part of the curriculum in several universities and institutes.