Varsha Panikar

Varsha Panikar is a film director, poet and a multi-disciplinary artist from India. They identify as trans non-binary and pansexual.

Varsha co-founded Star Hopper, India's first trans-led film production company in India, with their life and business partner, Asawari Jagushte during the lockdown of 2020.

They are best know for their award winning film, Bodies Of Desire, which was one of the Five Films For Freedom 2021, a global, online short film programme in support of LGBTQIA+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual ) rights, in partnership with BFI Flare: London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival and British Council.The film won Special Jury Award for The Best International Short at RIO Festival De Cinema LGBTQIA+ 2021, received Honourable Mention at 24fps International Short Film Festival, and has been officially selected at 42 film festivals so far, including Fringe Fest (UK),  Outfest LA 2021(US), BFI Flare(UK), Berlin Commercials (Germany), Toronto Queer Film Festival, Zebra Poetry Festival (Germany), Indian Film Festival of Melbourne (Australia) amongst others.

Their works have found home on platforms like Nowness, Nowness Asia, Disney+ Star, MTV, GirlsInFilms, Otherness Archive and Director's Notes.

They are a published writer and have been featured in various magazines and zines, both digital and physical.

Varsha also moonlights as a voice over artist and loves performing Spoken-word.

Quotes

"There is an almost tangible validation in seeing people who love like you do on screen, and I really wanted to create a portrait where I could see the kind of love and intimacy that I could relate to, the kind of couples I knew and was craving to see in films for a long time." - TOI, India

"Bodies of Desire is our imagination of what queer urban India could look like. Of course, only to an extent, because it is really broad and ever-evolving. But hopefully, this will compel others to take back the narrative and make and produce more queer content, which is told from their own perspective, and not how it appears to an outsider. And maybe, one day, we can look at works like these as not just queer or of the marginalized, but simply human, because that’s what they are." - Rolling Stones, India

"Why is it considered so awful to think differently, to be yourself without violating someone else’s right to be who they choose to be? Why is it anyone's business to tell me how to live my life, what to wear, what to learn, who to love, who to pray to, to not pray at all, or to take away my choice to live my life on my own accord?"

"As someone who identifies as many things, labels have given me the strength to proudly declare my identity, to be able to talk about myself, my lived experiences so nobody else gets to label me broken, bad, unnatural or any number of other words that for some cruel reason have been deemed as acceptable to refer to a living being."

"We’ve been socialised to think that differences are the cause of all conflict. Labels aren’t the cause of inequality - people are."

"We live in a world where anything that deviated from the norm is mislabeled and misrepresented. So until we live in a perfect world, I need my words and I need my labels. Until the world is free of intolerance and discrimination of people because of age, disability, ethnicity, origin, political belief, race, religion, language, culture, class, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, and other grounds - the labels will exist. As long as we need to have these conversations in the world, the labels shall continue to exist."

-Lipstick Politico

Links

Website

Instagram

References

1. Labels, In a not-so-perfect world (thelipstickpolitico.in)