For the first time in the North East, a three day film festival is being organized in Guwahati by the LGBT community to create awareness about the community.
Organizing the film festival is a gesture for a get together of all LGBT people, their well wishers and also to express their thoughts in the society in this platform.
Bitupi Dutta, an organizer and activist, said, "The LGBT issues are still stigmatized in the North East but it is not like there is not an LGBT community here. We want to break this invisibility. Queer rights are also human rights. We are trying to bring out acceptability and visibility in the society."
In February, 2014 an LGBT parade was organized for the first time and after that this is the second get together by the community to send their message to the society, he said.
The film festival, which began on Friday and will conclude on Sunday, is showing internationally selected LGBT films from Berlin film festival and indigenous films will also be screened.
Besides, there will be panel discussions by experts on LGBT issues at the Queer film fest. The first film screened today was Sansara.
Community members are expecting people to come to the festival and educate themselves on LGBT community, thus breaking the taboo and being supportive for their causes.