Home | Films | Unfolding Memory: Many People, Many Desires Reflection on Archiving Queer History in India

Unfolding Memory: Many People, Many Desires Reflection on Archiving Queer History in India

Details

Jun 29 2025 to Jun 29 2025 4 p.m.

EVENT HAS ENDED

Where

Bangalore International Centre

7 4th Main Rd, Stage 2, Domlur 560071

Event Description

45 minutes | English, Kannada, Tamil, Malayalam and Hindi with English subtitles | T. Jayashree | 2004

As part of BIC’s Pride Programs, this session will include a screening of T Jayashree’s Many People, Many Desires, followed by a panel discussion with T. Jayashree, Mira Brunner and Siddharth Narrain.

Many People, Many Desires is centered around interviews of many members of the LGBTQ community in Bangalore at the time. Starting from an exploration of sexuality and human rights, it allows the viewer to hear the first-person narratives of some of those who were engaged with the sexuality movement of the time – whose work is instrumental for the fight for legal rights for queer people in India.

Using legal discrimination against sexual minorities as its starting point, the film explores the relationship between class, sexuality, and gender. The film captures early years in the movement against Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, a colonial law which criminalized homosexual behavior and has now, through efforts which included some of those interviewed in the film, been read down.

The panel will talk about what has changed, what has remained the same, and QAMRA’s (the Queer Archive of Memory, Reflection, and Activism) attempts to preserve this history. They will discuss their perspectives on archiving queer material and the responsibilities of preserving what is still in living memory.

This year, BIC celebrates Pride Month through a series of programs that embrace Queerness as it is — unconforming, changing and alternative. Every program aims to embody the fluid and non-normative possibilities of existence that queerness creates, while fostering a community that welcomes difference in an unbending society, whether that be through new models of living or unique modes of self-expression. Pride, Insists Upon Itself!

Speakers

Mira Brunner
Archivist & Visual Artist
Mira Brunner is an archivist and a visual artist living in Bengaluru, India. She has a BFA (cum laude) from Pratt Institute, NY, US, and has worked in artist’s archives for the better part of a decade. Her personal and professional interests intersect around ephemera, personal papers, and the cataloguing of unconventional archival items.


T Jayashree
Filmmaker & Co-founder, QAMRA
T. Jayashree is an independent filmmaker based in Bangalore. She has written, produced and directed for international television, radio, feature and documentary film. Co-founder of the QAMRA Archival Project at NLSIU, her work has focused on the intersection between Gender, Sexuality, Law and Public health.


Siddharth Narrain
Assistant Professor of Law, National Law School of India University
Siddharth is a lawyer and legal academic whose work focuses on public law, law and media, human rights law, and gender and sexuality related law. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Law at NLS Bangalore, and has worked previously as a Lecturer at the Adelaide Law School, Australia; Assistant Professor (Visiting fulltime) at the School of Law, Governance & Citizenship, Ambedkar University Delhi; as a Research Associate with the Sarai Programme, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), Delhi; as a lawyer with the Alternative Law Forum, Bangalore. He has also worked previously as a journalist with The Hindu newspaper and Frontline magazine in Delhi.


Upcoming events in Bangalore International Centre
BESbswy