Pride Month! Vishal Punjabi on filming a Queer wedding: Queer love deserves to be told with the same grace, and emotion as any other love story
He's the man behind the lens of India's most iconic celebrity weddings—from Anushka Sharma-Virat Kohli's Tuscan vows to Deepika Padukone-Ranveer Singh's lakeside rituals. But filmmaker Vishal Punjabi's latest project didn't just capture a wedding.
It reframed the way we see love, identity, and belonging. In a deeply personal and powerful conversation, Punjabi opens up about filming his first queer wedding, the soul of storytelling, and why he believes such stories aren't just inclusive—they're necessary.
'There's already too much hate, trolling, and meaningless noise online that I feel a responsibility to tell stories that heal, that offer hope, and that bring people closer,' Punjabi begins.
Growing up in Africa, he says, homosexuality was seen as taboo. 'I came to India as a judgmental young boy,' he confesses. 'It took love stories, conversations, cinema, and music to help me see that being gay isn't unnatural. It's like a left-handed painter in a right-handed world. Uncommon, but no less gifted.'
Punjabi's team flew halfway across the globe to film this wedding in Mexico. 'Filming with a jet-lagged crew was definitely a logistical challenge,' he laughs, 'but what truly stayed with me was something the Pandit said during the ceremony.
In Hinduism, we fall in love with the aatma, not the body. And the aatma has no gender. That line gave me goosebumps. It reminded me that love, at its purest, is soul to soul. Love is love.
And not everyone fits into neat little boxes of '100% man' or '100% woman,'' he says.
'For this film, I stripped it back to the basics,' Punjabi shares. 'Queer love deserves to be told with the same grace, structure, and emotion as any other love story.'
From a yearning love song to a celebration anthem, the arc followed a familiar path—but the power lay in who told the story. 'A mother, a priest, a father. When understanding comes from them, it carries more weight. And perhaps, more power to change minds.'
'Wedding videos in India have evolved, but not always for the better,' Punjabi observes. He criticizes the current trend of 'slow motion, lip-syncing, and fake acting' that overshadows genuine emotion.
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