Pride month is right around the corner, and it’s time to celebrate the spirit of love with cinema. It’s great to see filmmakers pushing the envelope and breaking out the stories to understand the LGBTQIA+ community. Director Sudha Kongara’s short story Thamngam in Netflix’s Tamil anthology Paava Kadhaigal is about facing long-standing bullying and how a trans villager risks everything to support the dream of a beloved childhood friend.

There have been many such movies in the industry that are praised for accurate portrayals of the LGBTQIA+ community. Njan Marykutty starring Jayasurya is another award winning film about a transgender woman. The film, directed by Ranjith Sankar, carries a black-and-white story of a transgender as all the taboos associated with their community and the stigma of gender-affirming surgery are shredded.

To commemorate Pride Month, we have selected some classic titles from the South Indian film industry for a perfect watch list for our viewers.

Here are 5 regional films you can watch during Pride month:

Awe!

Throw: Kajal Aggarwal, Nithya Menon, Regina Cassandra, Eesha Rebba, Priyadarshi Pullikonda, Murli Sharma and Srinivas Avasarala.

Directed by Prasanth Varma (in his debut film), Awe is a psychological thriller that will have you rooting for the concept and compelling stories about marriage, sexuality, gender, mental health and child abuse. Eesha Rebba and Nithya Menen play lesbian characters in this Telugu anthology.

Super Deluxe

Throw: Vijay Sethupathi, Samantha Ruth Prabhu, Ramya Krishnan, Fahadh Faasil and others.

Vijay Sethupathi is seen as Shilpa aka Manickam, a transgender woman in the film. The film questions what is right and what is wrong and gives a deep understanding in every characterization. One of the bravest attempts taken by Tamil cinema.

Paava Kadhaigal

Paava Kadhaigal is a Tamil anthology that explores stories about dreams, desire, pride, honor and sin. Thangam, one of the episodes directed by Sudha Kongra, is a story about Sathar (played by Kalidas Jayaram), a Muslim trans woman who is in love with their Hindu childhood friend Saravanan (played by Shanthanu Bhagyaraj). The story hits the spot!

kanchana

Throw: Raghava Lawrence, Sarathkumar, Kovai Sarala

The horror comedy film written, produced and directed by Raghava Lawrence is an engrossing watch but also a bold move. Kanchana is a trans woman who is always shunned by the society including her parents. She is eventually killed, but vows to take revenge. Released in 2012, Kanchana was remade in Hindi as Laxmmi Bomb starring Akshay Kumar.

In Magan Magizhvan

In Magan Magizhvan (My Son is Gay), it is said to be the first Tamil film based on gay relationships. Directed by Lokesh Kumar, a filmmaker from Chennai, the film is a story of a gay man coming out about himself and how it affects his relationship with his mother and other people around him. The Tamil film saw its world premiere at the Melbourne Indian Film Festival.

There are many such films in South and Bollywood depicting an LGBTQ love story.

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