Happy Together

ROHAN KANAWADE'S TENDER GAY ROMANCE, SABAR BONDA, HAS WON THE TOP JURY PRIZE IN THE WORLD CINEMA SECTION AT THE SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL

- Suhani Singh

When interior design turned-filmmaker Rohan Kanawade decided he’d come out to his parents, he was anxious and expected a showdown. Instead, his father, a driver, and homemaker mother embraced him for who he was. “My semiliterate father said, ‘You know about yourself and that’s what’s important’,” recalls Kanawade. “They were so positive. I was like why do we only see tragic tales about us [LGBTQ] in films, why don’t we see this?” In his first feature Sabar Bonda, which is in Marathi and has just bagged the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, he doesn’t recreate the scene but channelises that sentiment with a mother who supports her son as his relatives corner him to get married.