''Khush'' is a 1991Farr and Gauthier, p
197
British short film directed by

Pratibha Parmar Pratibha Parmar is a British writer and filmmaker. She has made feminist documentaries such as '' Alice Walker: Beauty in Truth'' and ''My Name is Andrea'' about Andrea Dworkin. Early life Parmar was born in Nairobi, Kenya to Indian parents and ...

. It portrays lesbians and gay men from India and other parts of Asia,Baumgarten, Marjorie.
Two by Pratibha Parmar: A Place of Rage, Khush
(). ''

Austin Chronicle ''The Austin Chronicle'' is an alternative weekly newspaper published every Thursday in Austin, Texas, United States. The paper is distributed through free news-stands, often at local eateries or coffee houses frequented by its targeted demogr ...

''. Friday 21 February 1992. Retrieved on 28 August 2015. discussing their

coming out Coming out of the closet, often shortened to coming out, is a metaphor used to describe LGBT people's self-disclosure of their sexual orientation, romantic orientation, or gender identity. Framed and debated as a privacy issue, coming out of ...

and their acceptance and embracing of their sexuality.Farr and Gauthier, p
198
''Khush'' also discusses homosexuality in the Indian diaspora.Bravmann, Scott. ''Queer Fictions of the Past: History, Culture, and Difference''.

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII of England, King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press A university press is an academic publishing hou ...

, 9 October 1997. , 9780521599078. p
110
It includes interviews and has segments of dancing and artwork. In Urdu, "Khush" means "ecstatic pleasure".Kaplan, E. Ann. ''Looking for the Other: Feminism, Film and the Imperial Gaze''.

Routledge Routledge () is a British multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanities, behavioural science, education, law, and ...

, 10 September 2012. , 9781135208752. p
283
This is Parmar's seventh film. Gwendolyn Audrey Foster, the author of ''Women Film Directors: An International Bio-critical Dictionary'', wrote that ''Khush'' was "one of armar'sbest-known lesbian-centered films."Foster, Gwendolyn Audrey. ''Women Film Directors: An International Bio-critical Dictionary''.

Greenwood Publishing Group Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. (GPG), also known as ABC-Clio/Greenwood (stylized ABC-CLIO/Greenwood), is an educational and academic publisher (middle school through university level) which is today part of ABC-Clio. Established in 1967 as Gr ...

, 1 January 1995. , 9780313289729. p
302
The director stated that ''Khush'' was written as a "dialogue" involving South Asian LGBT diasporas. E. Ann Kaplan, author of ''Looking for the Other: Feminism, Film and the Imperial Gaze'', stated that ''Khush'' "addresses the dual formation of colonialism as patriarchical and homophobic-a homophobia that uncannily found an echo within Indian culture itself".

Content

The film uses the expository interview method where the subjects speak to a camera and the interviewer is not voiced. Parmar does not use narration in the interviews, so the subjects explain matters themselves. The film includes documentary interviews with dramatized scenes. Parmar edited out the "male gaze" and instead portrays women watching a dancer. This "lesbian gaze" uses the sort of "film-within-film" method used by ''

She Must be Seeing Things ''She Must Be Seeing Things'' is a 1987 lesbian feminist film directed by Sheila McLaughlin and starring Lois Weaver and Sheila Dabney. It was the film debut of both Lois Weaver and Peggy Shaw. It was controversial when first released. Plot T ...

''.Gupta, Suman, Tapan Basu, and Subarno Chattarji. ''Globalization In India: Contents And Discontents''.

Pearson Education India Pearson Education is a British-owned education publishing and assessment service to schools and corporations, as well for students directly. Pearson owns educational media brands including Addison–Wesley, Peachpit, Prentice Hall, eCollege, ...

, 30 March 2010. , 9788131719886. p
156
She wrote about the process in '' Queer Looks''.

Release

The film won the "Best Documentary" of the 1991 Frameline Film and Video Festival in San Francisco, the "Public Prize" of the 1991 International Women's Film Festival in Madrid, the 1992 "Best Foreign Film" award at the

Créteil International Women's Film Festival The Créteil International Women's Film Festival (in French Festival international de films de femmes de Créteil) is an annual event in Créteil, France, founded by Jackie Buet in 1978 to showcase the directing talents of female filmmakers who, ...

in Paris, and other awards. The film was played at the Dobie Theatre Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. It was aired on

Channel Four Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service i ...

in the United Kingdom and was one of the first LGBT-themed films to do so.Farr and Gauthier, p
197198

References

*Farr, Daniel and Jennifer Gauthier. "Screening Queer India" in Pratibha Parmar's ''Khush'' (Chapter 12). In: Pullen, Christopher. ''LGBT Transnational Identity and the Media''.

Palgrave Macmillan Palgrave Macmillan is a British academic and trade publishing company headquartered in the London Borough of Camden. Its programme includes textbooks, journals, monographs, professional and reference works in print and online. It maintains off ...

. 29 February 2012. , 9780230353510. Start: p
197

Notes

External links

* {{Authority control British LGBT-related films 1992 films LGBT-related short films 1991 LGBT-related films 1991 films Documentary films about LGBT topics British documentary films LGBT in Asia 1990s British films

Content

Release

References

Notes

Further reading

External links