Lesbian Curry Porn Simmers at NewFest

These two beauties, Nina and Lisa, found love in the kitchen.

Don’t pinch your pakoras into a pickle. The action is mostly about food, and never lewd, in Nina’s Heavenly Delights, the feature film debut from acclaimed British documentary and television director, Pratibha Parmar. Last night, she introduced her work to a packed house at NewFest, the New York LGBT film festival, with the cardamom, er, caveat, “I really hope you’ve all eaten because this film is going to make you very hungry.”

Roll moist close-ups of chicken shakuti, seasoned with sweet girl-on-girl romance.

The fun story of Nina’s Heavenly Delights cooks in Glasgow among a vibrant Indian community whose blended Scottish accents are hot as vindaloo in Hades. Prodigal lesbian daughter Nina returns from London to honor her recently deceased father by championing his restaurant through the final round of the Best of the West curry competition sponsored by Korma TV.

As they slice red peppers and sprinkle turmeric in close quarters, she and her kitchen partner, Lisa, fall in love, and the criminally attractive twosome played by Shelley Conn and Laura Fraser easily wins acceptance from Nina’s somewhat traditional mum.

Along the way, Nina’s over the top best friend and his performance troupe, the Chutney Queens, inject an air of Bollywood, while her younger sister, a closeted Highland dancer, spouts American-made one-liners brilliantly ripped from their original contexts.

Haven't gotten your fill of Nina? There's more after the jump.

Pratibha Parmar scoping out the set of her Nina's Heavenly Delights.

As you would demand from a lesbian answer to Like Water for Chocolate, exquisite cinematography contrasts bright, yes, very often orange, food colors with the dreary Glasgow cityscape. But a snazzy soundtrack, selected by Parmar herself, eschews folk overkill in favor of hipper electronic tunes that wear the visa stamps of the global Diaspora.

Some critics have poo-pooed Parmar, whose previous work probed riot grrrls and African-American women’s history, for the fantastically upbeat tone of her new film. You get the feeling they said the same when the lesbian classic, Desert Hearts, appeared with a positive ending in 1986.

Now, more than 20 years later, isn’t it tres unappetizing to think that lesbians onscreen are still expected to fall into a bisexual love triangle, or, in Nina’s case, end it all by overdosing on arsenic-laced samosas?

Nina’s Heavenly Delights will screen at LGBT film festivals throughout the summer, then open in select U.S. cities in September.

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[jan kozner]

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