Nepal\u2019s first queer centric film, Blue Flower had its Indian premiere at Kashish Film Festival this year and the film will shock you with how a homosexual man is punished in a homophobic society.<\/p>\n
Blue Flower or \u2018Nilo Phool\u2019 in Nepali is a true story set almost two decades ago in Kathmandu. Tilak is married against his will to a woman even though his family is very well aware of the fact that he\u2019s gay. But they look at it more as a disease to be \u2018cured\u2019 or something that\u2019ll go away once he is married. Tilak, as expected, is extremely unhappy in his marriage and that of course concerns his wife too. He\u2019d rather sleep on the floor than next to her on the bed. He carries the burden of not only not being able to marry someone he truly loves but also for not being able to give his wife the typical family life she dreamt of when she married him. <\/p>\n
They are from an orthodox small town where everyone knows everybody\u2019s business and somehow Tilak\u2019s wife not being able to conceive is the whole village\u2019s problem. She can\u2019t even do her daily chores without having to listen to a taunt or two from either her extremely mean mother-in-law or some passerby aunties from the neighbourhood. But she still never throws her husband under the bus and tells the truth about why they can\u2019t have a child. Their love was different, they were more like a team who wanted to find a way for both of them to be happy. <\/p>\n
One day, while washing clothes along with other women from her area near the riverside, a few people from an organisation called \u2018Sabhya Samaj\u2019 meet them. Director, Sunil Babu Pant plays one of the characters from the organisation. The main motive of the social service group is to spread awareness about the abuse faced by the members of the LGBTQIA+ community and also report to them in case they know someone from the community being harmed. The team also offered work to people from the community who are otherwise expelled from their village or workplaces. Tilak\u2019s wife felt like this was the perfect opportunity for them to get away from everyone and finally live a life of their own. And soon enough Tilak starts working for the organisation. Their goal is to basically make people from the LGBTQIA+ community aware of safe sex and in order to do that, they educate them about STDs and also distribute condoms.<\/p>\n