Screened at Kashish Film Festival 2025, God’s Other Plan and Is Gay Marriage Next explore LGBTQIA+ history in America, unconventional families, and more!

Two films that are polar opposites in nature were streamed back to back at the Kashish Film Festival this year and it only shows how far the LGBTQIA+ community has come over the years!

Is Gay Marriage Next? is a short documentary by Emily Clark that explores the fight for LGBTQIA+ rights, particularly same-sex marriage in America back in early 2000s. The film draws inspiration from a 2003 Newsweek cover asking the same question. The film shifts between past and present to show how one magazine cover impacted the life of so many people in the United States. The moments from the documentary that stood out were Clarke’s conversations with Lauren and Elisabeth - the lesbian couple who were on the cover and how it helped her feel seen. It includes all three of them narrating their coming out stories at a time when not many people were well educated about the queer community. 

Fast forward to 2024, Lauren and Elisabeth talk about what life looks like years later as a divorced lesbian couple who are co-parenting their son. They also openly talk about how parents of queer children should treat them well and accept that at the end of the day love is love. Having fought for equal rights for decades, the protagonists and the makers do leave you wondering what the future holds for same-sex marriages in India as well. It makes you introspect on how you can help contribute to a world where people are allowed to marry the person they love, regardless of gender. 

Also Read: Kashish 2025 opens with celebration of queer voices, tributes, and powerful stories!

God’s Other Plan revolves around Riley, who belongs from an extremely religious family. Since he was a kid, he was taught to live a kosher life and eventually have a family of his own. Little did he know, God has other plans for him other than the one the church and his family were imposing on him. He knew he was gay from early on but he hid in the closet for the longest time. He even prayed for it to go away. He married a woman and together they had a daughter. Until he could no longer live away from his truth.

Today, Riley has an unconventional family dynamic that people only see in movies. He is co-parenting his daughter with his wife and has adopted his wife’s second child (who isn't his own) with his boyfriend. It takes a village to raise a child and God's Other Plan shows you how that's true. They’re very well aware of the fact that their family is different from the rest but somehow they have a new found normalcy as they are figuring out this new life along the way. The documentary goes back and forth between the paradoxes of what Riley’s religion taught him to the polarising life that he eventually chose to live. They tap into his parents’ deep insecurities about the situation and how they have somewhere chosen a middle ground and made peace with their son’s choices. 

Amidst a never heard before story and metaphors about making your own little heaven in this crazy world, lies a family of five who tackle life one day at a time and keep love and respect in the middle of it all!

God’s Other Plan and Is Gay Marriage Next had their Indian premieres at the Kashish Film Festival this year!