While gay rights and marriage equality has been embraced by most countries, a small town in Southern India lives within a cocoon of traditions and social morality. In such a milieu when a young gay man Kartik, comes out to his mother Vasudha, her entire world comes crashing down. She has no one to turn to dispel her fears and doubts, to understand her loving son’s truth. Moreover as a woman, trapped within a patriarchal conservative society, her biggest challenge is to deal with her dogmatic husband Damodar, and the conservative society around her. ‘Evening Shadows’ is a universal story about a mother-son bonding and its emotional strength to withstand the ravages of time and harsh realities.

PANKH Director’s take: Cinema within cinema has always fascinated filmmakers all across the globe. The film industry of each country has characteristics peculiar to their culture. That is what distinguishes them, makes them intriguing and anecdotes associated with each industry in a specific cultural context naturally lend themselves to interesting tales. The story of Baby Kusum is such an intriguing and horrifying tale. It is a story about life imitating art in a grotesque and bizarre way. This film seeks to probe into the mechanism that operates behind the creation of dreams. It highlights a phenomenon that was peculiar and exclusive to the Indian film industry— the practise of casting children in roles opposite to their natural genders. We have had many instances of young girls being cast as boys in films and vice versa. Their screen names used to be changed to suit the gender they were playing on screen…