Badnam Basti

In 2024, Arsenal’s Archival Assembly festival explored the potential of transnational archival work from an auditory perspective. The program included BADNAM BASTI, considered to be India’s first queer film. This musical melodrama revolves around the love triangle that forms between Bansari, who falls into the hands of human traffickers, and Sarnam, who sets out to find her. During his search, he meets Singh and a special bond develops between them. Shortly after its premiere, the film was banned, and the original version is considered lost. The single print preserved in the Arsenal archive was a key component of the restoration, for which the sound negative also played a key role. We are screening a version in which individual scenes survive only as audio tracks. (mg)