Beyond representation: How student filmmakers are expanding queer storytelling

Directed by Saurav Mahind, Upon Starvation, which won Best International Short Film at the Sunny Bunny International Queer Film Festival and Best Indian Short Film (narrative) at Pune International Oueer Film Festival, follows Vivek, a pickpocket in Pune who uses seduction as both distraction and survival. His transactional encounters are disrupted when he meets Kartik, a student seeking genuine intimacy. What unfolds is a story about emotional vulnerability hidden beneath physical desire.

For Mahind, the film was rooted in an exploration of hunger in its many forms. “I intended to make a film that explores the clash of different kinds of desires and hunger. Biological as well as sexual. And beyond that, a new kind of hunger is realised. A hunger for emotional intimacy,” he says.

A shift from familiar frameworks

Mahind believes contemporary queer storytelling is gradually moving away from familiar frameworks. “The modern Indian queer wave is shifting its paradigm away from coming-out narratives,” he says, adding that younger filmmakers are increasingly interested in more nuanced stories. He also questions why queer characters continue to be treated differently from others on screen.

“Why can’t a film have a queer character where their sexuality is not at the forefront and actually treated as any other human being?”

A similar sentiment runs through Roses Are…, directed by Digvijay Andhorikar, which has screened at the 16th Chicago International Film Festival, the Bengaluru International Film Festival, and others, and won the best short film award at the Jagran Film Festival.

Set in a red-light area, the film follows Gita, a trans woman who dreams of leaving the brothel with her lover Ravi. Her plans become complicated when Deepali, a teenage neighbour she cares for like a younger sister, reveals that she too is in love with Ravi.

The film originated from a real-life image that stayed with Andhorikar during a filmmaking exercise. “I saw a young girl, maybe 14 or 15 years old, playing with a dog,” he recalls. “Seeing someone so young and innocent in that kind of environment made me very curious. I kept thinking about her. That single image of the girl and the dog was the seed for the whole movie.”

Greater exposure to global cinema

Like Mahind, Andhorikar was interested less in identity as a category and more in the emotional realities of his characters. “Queer people aren’t looking for something strange — they are looking for the same love and connection that everyone else wants. It’s a very human story about wanting to be seen and valued by another person,” he says.

The director argues that younger filmmakers today are benefiting from greater exposure to global cinema and are approaching queer stories with greater openness. “We are trying to show that these stories are a natural part of our world today,” he says. “I think student filmmakers are starting to realise that we don’t always have to focus on the struggle of being queer; we can just tell human stories where the characters happen to be queer.”

Both filmmakers also point to the role of film schools in enabling such narratives. Mahind describes institutions like FTII and SRFTI as spaces where “queerness finds a safe space”, while Andhorikar notes that film schools allow students to experiment without the commercial pressures that often shape mainstream filmmaking.

Diksha Banik is an intern with The Indian Express.